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HIMM
VolS No 6
In
e
si
d
Nov/Dec 199S
The Abode of Gods, King of
Mountains, Himalaya You
bound the oceans from
east to west
.A
northern yardstick To measure
the Earth - Kalidasa (Kumara
Sambhava)
C O V E R
10 Deadly Afghan Deja Vu by
Zahid Khan
Afghanistan's neighbours play a
Not-So-Great Game for control
of Kabul.
F e a t u r e s
_
18 The Power of Compassion or
the Power of Rhetoric by Kim
Gutschow
Buddhist women from 14 countries
meet in Ladakh.
21 A South Asian in American
Academia by Binod Bhattarai A
conference in Wisconsin has its ups
and downs.
24 Lumbini as Disneyland by
Rachana Pathak Archaeologists run
amok and monasteries outspend
each other at the Sakyamuni's
birthplace.
Associate Editor :MantsbaAryal :. :
Staff Writer . Deepak Thapa°;
Editorial Assistant Rachana fathak
r t
5
n
Mail
9 On the Way Up 16
Himalaya Mectiafile 44
Abstracts
46
32 The Porter's Burden by Kanak
Mani Dixit Nobody works harder and
longer than the Nepali bhariyct.
Briefs Two in One Kaiiash of
the East This Ship of Nepal! South
Asian Refugees Born-Again
Thangkas Investing on Ama
Dablam Happy Birthday, King tion
Icon
New, Improved Biblotheca
Gurkha Collects His Dues
PLACENAMES - Sikkim
52
55
Voices
Reviews
: Marketing ,J
Administration
Rape for Profit
Warrior Gentlemen
Suman Shakya, Sujata Chhetri
Bataram Sharma, Mamata Manandha.r
Power Places of Kathmandu
Cover picture by Arun Jetlie.
A tanga passes bombed-out building in
Kabul, September 1995.
e
Missed Pakistani Nuances Tibetans
Did It Government Babu Bangla
Objection Cyclospora Correction
No Gender Sensitivity Aryan
Theory Don't Go South Asian
30 From Sea to Shining Sea by
Mahesh Uniyal Elite Doon School
wants to gfl South Asian.
40 Say When, Burma by Satya
Sivaraman Burma awaits freedom;
the Indians are coming back.
m
ts
63 Know Your Himal
Mountains of South Central Asia
64 Abominably Yours
is published every two months by Hintal
.
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M
Missed Pakistani Nuances
The quotation that has been attributed to me
in the Sep/Oct 1995 report on the
Himalayan media workshop conveys a
distorted impress; on o f what I said.'ft is
unfair to regard anything [hat: is written by
the Pakistani press by Pakistani writers that
is critical of Indian policy as being
"anti-India". As by far the biggest country in:
[he : region, India has much to account for in
its overbearing dealings with its smaller
neighbours. To give you an example, the
report in Himal dubs the Pakistani press's
coverage of India's economic blockade of
.Nepal in 19g9 as "anti-India": In fact, 1 was
-one of the writers covering Indians extremely:
high-handed attitude towards Nepal in 1989
where I happened to be at the time. I saw
the misery and trauma that it caused to a
small land-locked country.
Similarly, the Pakistani press has.corne
a long way in recent years as a respected
institution in the country. If it exercises
restraint on certain issues, this does not
mean that it "toes the government's line", as
the report quotes me as having said. It must
also be remembered that the democratic
system in Pakistan is in its infancy and if the
Pakistani press tends to show deference on
some issues, this is understandable since the
system's long-term stability cattnot as yet be
taken for granted, Nor is such deference
confined to the Pakistani press. It can be
found in India, which has beenunder a
democratic set-up for much longer.
The nuances that I have mentioned are
important to remember when a report is
written on such matters, I note that no
mention is made in the report on my
a
extempore presentation on the Northern
Areas of Pakistanj for which 1 attended the
seminar;. : .
. NazirKamal
::..:;:.......
■. ■■ I sl amabad . :-...
;
' " " "'.'."
The Tibetans Did It
On my return, to Kathmandu: from: a : .
five-week tour tp Western Tibet during
September-October, I read Erie Jan/Feb .1995
Himal with the::anicle:."Kang : . . : . . . . . .
Rimpoche Trashed and^Commericaiised1^ It .
contains crucial inaccuracies which need. ..
cdrrectiom-Oneis the state of affairs in
Tarchen and along, the Korlam around Kailas.
Tarcheri is indeed an ecological mess, a .
vast irashpile of broken beer bottles, cans of
Chinese soft drinks, discarded sneakers,
clothes, paper, and human excrement: It is a..
sorry sight, but the source of this mess is
clearly the nearby Tibetan pilgrims'camp and
:
not the foreign tourists. Evenlarger
number of. Tibetan pilgrims are driven here in
overcrowded trucks, camp intents, and: :
simply thmw away anything they no longer
need; Some of the most beautiful camps
around Kailas are similarly, despoiled. fey...: -.- ■
detritus left behind by. Tibetan pilgrims. In
contrast, we witnessed Western tourist groups
meticulously torching any burnable garbage
and.burying or carrying out all ■ ot he r - tr a s h.
:-..-.
■■
As for the: sensational numbers of "foreign
tourists" reported by your corre-spondenti did
he fall for die inflated numbers projected by
the Chinese torn operators, or does he count
the Indian pilgrims as foreign tourists as well?
The : . . . . . .biggest joke was
the fears expressed .
about an airport- ' -
^M/B;
"coming- up. The ■ nearest, feasible
location would be
Tholmg, :200km from
Tarchen and two
6000m passes away.
Besides, 3800m isabit
too ■ high for commercial jet operations!
Why do yon ■ ■
-print-such' .:."obviously
sensationalist
writmgs? Itdbes.
HIMAL
I\
ndbody.any..useful service, least of all the
. serious ecological cause that you presum
ably espouse.
: .............
As tang as 1 have your attention, let me
publicise one positive development in ■
Western-Tibet,.Tsaparang; which was
the Cultural Revolution, has been restored in
an-exemplary, way, presumably by the
Chinese. By contrast, the other great West
Tibetan site of spectacular murals, Alchiin
Ladakh, has been crumbling unchecked for
years, because of political wrangling among
the ministries in New:'Delhi. So much for the
"bad" Chinese and the "bad! ■ Wes ter n to u r is ts .
■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■
: MjW. F. Gross Pacific
Palisades, California.
Government Baku's Review
Romesh Bhattacharji has attacked me personally as well as my book -Strangers qf the Mist in
what is: best described as a diatribe but can
hardly be; bestowed the dignity of being defined as a review (Jul/Aug 1995). -: ■
According to him, I am a lrdilletante liberal",
"gentle toward the insurgents", thai: I have
depended extensively on news clippings, that I
"ignore the suffering of innocent people", that
"Ihave a sneaking admiration for ..those in
power", that I am, above all, uninformed of the
"causes and conditions" that back insurgency.
He criticises me for quoting K.P.S. Gill during
the. book and dismisses the troubles in the
Punjab as plain and simple "terrorism" and
not insurgency. With that one remark,
Bhsttacharji reveals that his knowledgeof the
Punjab is as poor as his comprehension of the
Northeast
First of all, I must place on record my
strong objection to what he terms as my
timidity and hiscaU fora "braver.person" to
tell the truth about the Northeast. Throughout my career as a journalist and writer, 1
have beenin extremely difficult and
dangerous situations in Afghanistan, Sri
Lanka, the Northeast and elsewhere. 1 tfiink it
is in extremely poor taste for a government
babu sitting in a safe job to make such
sweeping remarks.
Insensitivity and ignorance are two
major flaws in most Indian government
officials who talk, work, live and write about
the Northeast, Bhattacharji is no exception.
But this is not what I take serious objection
to. Bhattadiarji has been more than
oi people byftoodihg arid, other .
insensitive and ignorant in his approach; he
has been dishonest, while all the firne seeking factors, migration, and pressures on land,;
to straight] aeket this book arid the : beliefs water-and the habitat leading to and caused
that I passionately hold to his pedantic vision. by uns^stainabk development strategics are
irrelevant, They-cannpt be. :dismissed tna1 will take four examples. :
y
First, his statement that there are
couple of paragraphs as Bhattacharji f a t u o u s l y s a i d :
"minor inaccuracies" in the book. In the
■ . . - . . . .
■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ . : „
. ■ :" ■■ ■■ ■■ ■ ■
■
very next paragraph he makes a critical and
": ■ -As for fny reference to Bangladesh/ ■
insensitive statement .that I do not go by
■
Myanmar; Bhutan and Eastern Nepal, only a .
significant dates and Iocs!lions such as the:
regional approach can work,:.whether it is ;
assassinations of Cungshim Shariza in 199Q
economic cooperation, at-the border village: '.
and that of Chalie Kevichusa ''more than a
and community level, the revival :of. the
:
decade earlier." 1 knew bothmen personally
water transport systems, tapping the energy..
and was saddened by their sense less, deaths ...
sou fees,, or preparing the. communities of the
Chalie wasfelledby a hail of bullets in 4992
region for the sweeping changes that
and figures on page 141 and 242 of the .
ok. Lungshim is on page 240.
:.. ■; a re...co fining. - ;■■■■ ■ ■. ......... ■
Let me, before dosing, refer, to Tanka
Two, the killing of Dr. Hsralu created ■:
B. Subba's letter oh,my article; White I
revulsion across the Naga hills but it was
respect his. views as a'scholar who :has
: not the trigger for insurgency: That had
been set by the prophetic: work of AX Phizo followed the issues before the region for many
years but 1 do not think that What 1 have
and the power lie drew from his people as
articulated are "outdated Keyrjesian
well as the blind responses of the
econoitiics." I think they: make
government of India, Anyone whodpesnot
sound.common, arid economic. : sense lor:
know even that lives in.an unreal world,. .
ultimately, it is cooperation at the .. micro arid
Three, Mizoram and the famine which
macro level that will generate the prosperity
catapulted the Mizo Famine Front (later the
and growth needed to pull the .region out ef
Mizo National: From) and its leader,
the;abyss. That this is already happening at
Laldenga, to positions of influence. I am
the border region, that it has existed
accused of underplaying the failure of the
for.decades at the informal level is an
Assam government to react in time to the:
crisis, Bhattacharji should read pages 111 and . indication of the changes that must continue
to take place."
112.
Sanpy fJazarifea ■■
Tour, his remark that I have- ignored the
.■'." New Delhi... ..:. ' :
questions of corruption, military excesses,
inequity and prejudice which sustain,
Baiigla Objection
insurgency. Pages 249 to 275: "A. Stepmother
Atteraionof this Embassy has been drawa to
in Delhi".
The core of the book lies in its approach Saiijoy Hazarika's "Far Eastern.Himalaya -the
to the crisis that is aYewhelrrjing the eastern Search for Distance and Dignity". In order
quadrant of the Subcontinent. Only someone toassist in 'understandingdie various
who is totally blind would say that die issues -.measures Bangladesh has .been'undertaking
(or the development of the Chittagong Hill
of demography, population, explosion,
Tracts districts; two copies ol a recent
environmental crisis, displacepublication a about life in the Chittngong Hill
Tracts are enclosed.. This'research-based book,
it is hoped, shall dispel the wrong and
distorted impressions that uniortti-nately
result irt articles of the type written: by
Hazarika.
v
Embassy of Bangladesh
Katfimarcdu
In Hazarika's Defence
1 had great difficulty with Romesh
Bhattacharji's review "Str^ngajc to the Land" of
Sanjoy Haiarika's Sicangerstothe Mist (\riking
1994). I have not seen a more hostile revigsy
in recent years, and I fail to ■understand
Hirreil's..purpose in carrying
such a review. If the "book:-was so bad, why
waste two pages on it?
Bhattarcharji unfairly accuses ■Hazarika
of everything from amnesia to
being.pro-estijbltshmerit; Tlae verdict in the
last paragraph is: i'The reader will have to
wait lor a braver person to: tell the tale of
insurgency in North-East India." I would say .
we have towait for a better person to review
the book. .
As someone who has lived and worked
in the Northeast, I found Strangers of (he Mist
ol great interest and very satisfying in its
overall treatment of theme, style of
presentation, and coverage,
Ha^trika, anative expatriate of the .
Northeast, lias produced a readable book with
care and passion! Mis book is unique, for he
has written a sensitive tale of an unsettled:
time in a largely unknown region that is rife
with insurgency. The presentation, Which
weaves in views of actors oi\ the spot, edinic
politics,.and history, is fascinating awl
provides a. holistic vista;
The Brahmaputra watershed, right from
the Tista basin to the Patkai ranges jn the
Brahmaputra-Irrawady water divide and from
the southern extension of the Tibetan plateau
to the Bay of Bengal, is one natural
geographical region supporting some of the
world's most isolated ethnic groups. Though
nature has endowed the Northeast with ■
plentiful treasures,.its history has been
punctuated: by havoc, and today the region is
experiencing tumultuous times
Problems of insurgency, immigration,
fl.oods.and, of late, drug and narcotics
trafficking, demand a regional treatments
Perhaps it was only natural that a 'purist' like
Bhattacharji should miss the regional
perspective presented so lucidly by
Hazarika. Instead, Bhattaeharji's world is
apparently divided into devils (such as Gill
and SUI.FA) and angels (such as the insurgents). Both categories are human and
therefore fallible^ The next time Himal
considers a title worthy of review, please find
sottieone who is knowledgeable and capable
of providing balanced opinlotis.
AC. Sin ha
Dean, School of Social Sciences
: North fasteftt Hill University, Shi/long
Cyclospora Correction
As Medical Director of the CIWEC Clinic, I
was pleased that Himal provided a nice
introduction of the organism that has come to
be called 'Cyctospora' ("Unequal Intestines"
.Jul/Aug 1995). The organism has a
confusing history, and 1 would like to make a
correction. After we discovered the
organism in Kathmandu in 1989, we sent it
■r..T :..:.:..
to some experts in the United States. No one
was sure what it was, but. it seemed to
resemble an organism called the
CryptosporidiuM, which is a protozoa like the
more familiar Giardia lamblia, and the
amoeba Entampefra histolytka. However, a
researcher at the Center for Disease Control
in Atlantai Georgia, thought that the
organism resembled a blue-green algae, This
possibility persisted forseverat years, with
no proof either way, Then^in1993,
researchers TO Peru proved that it was not the
blue-green algae, but was in fact a protozoa
similar to Cryptosporidium. So, in the end,
the organism has no connection to pond
water, or any other form of algae.
In 1994, we saw a letter in a medical
journal that suggested that
trimethoprirnsul-famethoxasole {Bactrim or
Septra) was effective in killing the organism.
We did a Study that proved this conclusively,
and this research is now referred In
whenever the organism pops "up somewhere.
Last summer, an outbreak of Cyclospe-ra
involving at least 200 people occurred in
Florida, and a smaller outbreak occurred in
New York. Because of the Nepal research,
everyone could be easily treated.
We have tried for several years to study
the magnitude of the problem among the
Nepali population: We did a small study in a
children's clink: injorpati that demon-
strated the presence of Gyelospora in five
percent of the.children.with diarrhoea; and
two percent of those -who did not have
diarrhoea. Children under the age of .18
monthsdid[not have Cyciosppra, suggesting
that breast milk may offer some antibody :
protectipriiOrthatbreaSl-feedihg children
drink less untreated water thanolder
■children.": "::
Although Cyclospora does not cause:
life^threate.ning diarrhoea, it dees cause a
prolonged (average sis weeks) infection,
with loss of appetite; riiaiabsorptibn of food,
and loss of weight. ..Children with already
marginal nutritional status could then be at
risk for a^more serious infection. The other
riskaf Cyclospora infection,. a$:pointe.d out.
to me by Dr. M.P, Shrestha, retired head of
the Teku Infectious Diseases Hospital in
Kathmandu, is that a child with projonged
diarrhoea and weight.lqss.'.mgy e.nrfup being
incorrectly treated for tuberculosis of the
intestine, which involves taking medicine
for up to a year. Thus, die ability to easily
diagnose Cyclospora could prevent children,
from a deterioration in overall health, or
prevent unnecessary and costly treatment.;
The .Cyclospora orgariisrri is not particularly
difficult to identify in stool. examinations:
However, it is often preseni in small
numbers, and does require a careful search.
The. presence of other stool
organ-'smsihatesuse diarrhoea in
Nepali patients does hot make it
more difficult to spot Cycipsp.ora, but ft
may ■. ■ prematurely end the search
for the ■cause'of diarrhoea before the
real culprit is identified In other
words, the overworked technician
may find it enough to spot worm eggs
Dr. C'iardia, and not keep, looking for
I something else,
,.'.;::.'.
The recent publicity From
j Himat magazine and other sources
j will raise awareness about
Cyclospora, and in a short time we
may know whether or not this is an
important problem for the citizens
ot Nepal. In the meantime, Nepal
can take pride that most of the
important work on this organism
was performed here and thenshared
with the rest of the world,
DavidR.Schlim.MD
■
M«iica! Director,
CWEC Clinic, Katlimandu
No Gender Sensitivity
t could not help but be irritated by
your tongue-in:cheek coverage of
the Beijing Conference on Women {.Sep/Oct
1995), for 1 believe that by its belittling
coverage Himal short-changed the interests of
all South Asian women, and iR particular
women all over Nepal, There are numerous
questions you should have been asking.
What were the issues women from this part
of the. worlci were most concerned about? 1
know, but do you or many of your readers?
What gains have women in this part of the.
world made m the last ten years? Are they :
active participants in development en are they
being.left behind? In health, in education, in
legal status, in decision-making, in
employment?
Women's issues' are seldom just
women's issues: What affects women
invariably affects the communities they live
in: Ignoring, those issues is ignoring half the
community and can never be good for any
society. I think Himal should give serious
consideration to devoting a whole issue to
women of the region and their : issues. There
are many women, who could be invited to
shed light on many of the questions and
greatly enrich you and your readers.
One little piece on Tibetan women's
involvement and a few snide references in
Abominably Yours don't do justice to the
serious efforts women in this part of the
world made to participate La the Beijing
conference and are making to improve their
future and the future of their daughters,
families and communities.
Helen Sherpa
Kaihmandu
The Way of Himalayan
Inventions
That's the way of star Himalayan inventions:
they're co-opted by larger regional claims.
First Buddhism, then Himal—what next?
We at the Himalayan Research Bulletin are
awfully nervous about what this new
incarnation maymean for those of us who've
found the old Himal. such a useful, even
inspiring, resource. If you'd seen how
gleefully people at the last South. Asia
conference at Madison snatched up the few
Nepali HimaIs,, you'd have thought twice,
I'm sure, about the change you have
announced. Maybe the HRB could try to
serve as some sort of stopgap for your
writers or readers. Meanwhile, we hope, that
Himal Svuth Asia is so successful that you can
piggyback the old Himal onto it, and we'll
all be happy!
Barbara Brower
Portland State University
Rewriting Aryan History
■
Rachana Paihak correctly exposes some
inconsistencies in the 'Aryan invasion' theory
(Mail, Sep/Oct 1995). 1: agree that I
ndolbgists. are ..ethnocentric when crediting
Europeans for India's Vedic past.
Question-ing. the 'Aryan Invasion' -theory is
therefore: ' '■ useful, but advocating historical
'reconstruction' or revision is. more tricky..
Any revision of.history demands evidence
tefutingan ■ existing theory or promoting
a plausible alternative
arid,..tnforfunately.Pat.kakprcivl-. des
neither. Historicalinterpretation reflects
bias, whether from an ethnocent fit-Euro- :
pean, or a politically correct/South Asian;
Re-writing history is an ambitious'task,. .'.
which must, be Conducted with caution.
focus, let Himal be. confined exclusively to
the mighty Bitnakya-mountains: Hirhal is ■' ■
uniqiieand outstanding, and. frota. the very
; heart of the Himalaya, jf you wish, to include
plains and make it:a South Asian magazine,, you
are welcome to start a fresh one, instead
■ o f ch a n g i n g H i m a l , ■ ; ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■
■
■ "AnthropologicalSurvey of India . : : : ■ ■ SJiiflong
Bhutan
330
On the matter of Himal's change of ■ ■Nu
■■.
u$ ■
Other S. As tan Countries
25
■
U$North America
35
Germany
DM
.
.70
United Kingdom & Ireland
£'
30
Netherlands
Dfl
100"., .
Elsewhere
U$
.':.% '
j-i' ■ . ■ .:
.
ZahidRus aiin ■ ■''" ■' '■ '
" '. . '._______
. ■ ''. :
J,
■
■
. As a 'London-based" journalist, specialising in ■■
mountain areas arid a "regular-reader of ' Kimal,
I read: of your proposed editorial
McLtan, Virginia.
Aryan Theory
shirt-.with5ome'coricerh.:l in'ri sad; that such ■ a
valuable, source of information :and
understanding about the Himalaya is to be.lbst.
Himalistheorrly.; ■;. : ■...
■■
■begins to make sense of the polaical situationin
HimalayancDuntries,:sthe.only -magazine
. that regularly covers Hitnalayan cultural
issues, arid is one-of
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500Sansome Street, Suite. 101, PO.Box 4707.5.8 Satj
Francisco, Q\ 94147
United Kingdom & Ireland: jotiGiri(Ref; H),
221 A,shly Gardens, Emery Hill Street, London SWl 1PA
The Netherlands: C, F. de 5ppelaar,
. Foundation Himalaya, Keizersgracht 463,
1017 t>RAmsterdam- ■
Individual
Nepal
India
Bhutan
Other S. Asian Countries
North America
Germany
United Kingdom & Ireland
Netherlands
Ebewhere
' NRs
.. rss
Nu"
US
US
DM
£
Dfl.
U$
1 year
220
:
140
175
.. :: 12
■ 20 ' .
2yrs
'400'
260
330
20
40
90
55
45
■80
22.50 ■
50
■
25 ■
.
45
Institutional
Nepal
India
NRs.
IRs
600
26ff
1100
500-
80
Switzerland' Helene Zingg, Tarinenweg 18,
.Europe: Durga.Press CHimal), Luitpo.ldstr. 20.
D—82211, Herrschin^, Germany
^ _
_
Squandered influence
'.magazine! read that ■■ ■
45
60
120
.'.' -.50
180.
■
Yogesh Dhurigel
1 do agree with Rachana Pathak's letter
refuting the theory of the so-called Aryan
invasion. Migration of human groups in iht
past and decline of river valley civilsatLons ..
cannot be understood in the light of one or
two explanations, and an objective and
systematic multi-disciplinary study is ;ded
in this regard.
640
to;
o hope, at the'very least, that : your liberal political outlook will
do
remain-Ed Dougios London
appreciat
Sober in the Maidan The news that Himal will soon cease being a purely Himalayan
e that
magazine fills me with.a mixture of dismay and anticipation. Dismay; because the
Himal
wasnot whole.point of Himal is its uniqueness as the magazine of the Himalaya.
startea to
ease the
professio
nal
burden of
Western"
journalist
s, but.l
do:hope
that ..the
scaleol
your
influence
in North
America
and ...............................................................
Europe
has not
escaped
your
attention,.
1 think
thai5pread
ingy.0ur.n
et wi!l
serve only
to tiilute
tfiat
influence.
Perhaps
..there, are
commercia
l'' '
pressures, on
you.- ...-.
■.... '■
t
o
b
r
o
a
d
e
n
y
o
u
r
s
c
o
p
e
,
1
d
JW
Anticipation, because it will be interesting to
see how Himal's enjoyable mixture of
irreverent commentary and sober analysis is
applied to the maidan. I've canvassed the
opinions of several other Himakyophiles
this side of the Kalo Pant, and the consensus
is that we're not sure why you're doing this,
and we're not sure that we like it, but for the
time being we'll give you the benefit of the
doubt.
Michael Hurt
Editor 'South Asia Research'
School of Oriental andAjrican Studies
London
Periphery's Voice
I wish you well for a pan-South Asian
magazine, but what about the folks like me
who wanted to hear a voice from the
periphery—a voice that did not emanate
from the capitals of South Asian countries? 1
think the success of Himal was based on the
fact that it appealed to the periphery, both
the people and the environment. Perhaps the
profits were not there, or rather the losses
too great. How about putting out a news
e-mail group newsletter to retain the interest
of Himalayan folks?
NigelJ. R. Allan
Way Up
Kanak Mani Dixit
I HIMAL HAS WORKED single-mindedly
i over the last eight years to address the
concerns of the inhabitants of the Himalaya.
What it did was necessary and important,
delving deep into the Himalayan psyche and
landscape and raising issues to challenge
government, academia, and those engaged in
development.
Rather than go about it as a scholarly
journal or newsletter, Himal sought to address the issues in magazine style and for-
Professor of Geography
UC Davis, California
Ground for Divorce
While 1 wholeheartedly agree with youi case
for a magazine for South Asia, I cannot quite
come to terms with your decision to.
'upgrade' Himal itself to fill this void. All the
forceful arguments for a magazine dedicated
to the South Asian region as a whole,
however compelling, do not obviate the
need For continued focussed reporting on
the Himalaya. Indeed, it was most telling
that you carried your notice of desertion
facing a report highlighting the lament that
"the Himalayan zone gets short shrift from
the mainstream media." You will concur
that despite the extraordinary coverage of
the region by Himal over the years, the
Himalaya still needs nurturing. With your
decision to venture out onto a larger playing
field, one gets the sinking feeling that the
convincing arguments for a South Asian
magazine were solely conceived by you,
having decided that Himal has now
outgrown even the mighty Himalaya, only to
justify the divorce.
Bftim Subba
camp: Kathmandu
HIMAL November/December 1935
1
|
!
!
i
:
mat, something that has its own economics.
The response was gratifying, and over time
Himal collected a dedicated readership.
As it turned out, the audience was as
small as it was committed. The numbers did
not add up to sustain the magazine, and
Himal Association, the non-profit publisher,
always had to go in search for funds beyond
subscriptions and advertising. Because of
die low level of English use in the Himalaya,
the lack of a developed Himalayan market
to support a homegrown journal, and, most
importantly, Himal's own determination to
cover serious issues rather than the news-ofthe-day, sustainability proved elusive.
After eight years on the road, it was
clear that the only way to remain a Himalayan magazine was for Himal to begin to
serve the tourist, tapping into the world's
never-satiated demand for a romantic
Himalaya. There was good money to be
made in that direction, but we have decided
to take the trail less travelled by.
Indeed, it is a path that has not been
taken by anyone before—a South Asian
magazine to straddle the region from the
Sea to the Bay, and from Tibet's Chang Tang
plain to Sri Lanka's coconut plantations.
The prospects are challenging, but the rewards are those that come from opening
doors, lifting barriers, and lettings ideas
run free. South Asia's conversations on
Himal's pages, we think, will be worth
listening to.
To our faithful readers whoprovided
the Himalayan Himal the strength to publish until the end of 1995, we say: the
Himalaya, from Namcha Barwa to Nanga
Parbat, is like a clothesline on which South
Asia hangs. Himal will continue to cover
these ranges with undiminished commitment, with the added consideration that
this region is also a part of South Asia.
Decisions taken in the maidan have a lot to
do with what happens in the pahad. As the
excitement of publishing a first-time magazine for one of the most populated yet
neglected regions of the world carries us
forward to Himal South Asia, we know that
even though there will be less coverage of
the Himalaya in Himal henceforth, that
coverage will have more impact.
As Himal prepares for its re-launch, a
thanks from the heart to all friends who
have helped the magazine since 1987, With
out trying to be exhaustive, and in no order,
Himalayan Himal salutes Raj iv Ti wan, Rob
ert Cohen, Shanta Dixit, Miriam Poser,
Milan Dixit, Bikas Rauniar, Manoj Basnet,
Rupajoshi, Bharat Upreti, Bharat Koirala,
Padam Singh Ghaley, Basanta Thapa, Suman
Basnet, PrakritiKarmacharya.Ratna Kumar
Sharma.KesangTseten.Manjushree Thapa,
Omar Sattaur, Stan Armington, Sanjeev
Prakash, Sita Maiya Thapa, Bikash Pandey,
Anmole Prasad, Frans Meijer, Dipak
Gyawali.Pratyoush On ta.Ajaya Dixit, Halle
Jom Hansen, Anup Pahari, Anil Chitrakar,
Claus Euler, Adolf Odermat, John
Baccaglini, Sujeev Shakya, Helene Zingg,
Akio Horiuchi, Indra Ban, Halle Jom
Hansen, Joti Giri and Jon Swan. And
Jagadamba Offset.
t
Stay with us...
Afghanistan's neighbours play a Not-so-Great Game for control of a
country that is too geo-strategically important for its own good.
by Zahid Khan
IN THE SIDE STREETS of Kabul, the angry
crowd had been gathering since nightfall. Daggers drawn, they advanced menacingly up to
the gates of the mission. Taking cover of darkness, some Afghans entered the compound
and set fire to a building. Embassy staff confronted the intruders and engaged in
hand-to-hand combat. Several were cut down by
swords. This was the attack on the British
garrison in Kabul on 1 November 1841, in
which the
10
Pictures by Arunjetlie
famousBritish explorer-diplomat Sir Alexander
Bumes and his staff were hacked to death. But
it could very well fit the description of the
attack on the Pakistani embassy in Kabul in
September 1995, in which diplomats were
lynched and the mission burnt to the ground.
In Afghanistan, history is always repeating
itself—in the same place. In this land of
deadly deja vu, fresh blood of 20th century
wars are spilt on earth that contains the
bleached bones of warriors who fell in battles
centuries ago. Scenes of historic carnages with
place names like Gandamak, BolanPass, Herat,
Charasyab are today's new battlefields. The
crackle of jezails (long-barrel musket used
with deadly accuracy against the British) and
the glint of blood-stained swords are replaced
by helicopter gunships, stinger missiles and
'Stalin's Organs'—the dreaded multiple-rocket
launchers. Afghanistan today is a theatre of
November/December 1995 HIMAL
snow, charred shells of burnt-out aircraft litter
the side of the runway at Jalalabad's airport.
One layerofwreckage dates back to mujahideen
attacks on the Soviet bases that existed here,
white the layer above it is the detritus of the
fearsome battles between rival factions after
the Soviet withdrawal.
war where medieval rivalries are being fought
out with the most efficient killing machines
ever designed.
The ignominious retreat of the British
officers and their families with Gurkha and
Sikh guards from Kabul in 1842 remains a
reminder of the fierce xenophobia that fuelled
Afghan resistance against outsiders. Of the
16,000 soldiers, civilians, women and children who left Kabul on foot in the bitterly cold
morning of 1 January 1842, one British doctor
rode into Jalalabad a week later. He told a
horrifying tale of how the retreating garrison
was cut to pieces one by one as it struggled
through snow-bound passes.
Today, down the hill from where British
lookouts atjalalabad Fort 150 years ago spotted the lone survivor emerge through the
HIMAL NovemberlDecmber
1995
Kabuli People
The Afghan airline Ariana stilt flies
Jalalabad-Kabul, but that is about the only
domestic route it still does. Kandahar, Herat
and Mazar-e-Sharif are all controlled by
anti-govemment forces of the Uzbek general
Rashid Dostam to the north and the
Pakhtun-led student soldiers of the Taliban
to the south. Dostam and the Taliban, as they
advance in a pincer towards Kabul, together
contro! half of Afghanistan.
The other half of this fragmented country
is still in the hands of the government led by
the Tajik president Burharmddin Rabbani
and his Defence Minister.'the former guerrilla
commander, Ahmad Shah Masoud. With the
fall of the western city of Herat to the Taliban
in October, the government in Kabui has no
land links to the outside world. Ariana's cargo
flights to New Delhi provides a vital last
life-line. Meanwhile, the Taliban uses its own
captured airliners to fly in consumer electronics from Dubai and carry on a thriving smuggling business into Pakistan to finance its
war effort.
Kabul's war-weary citizens are hunkering
down for another dark and heatless winter as
the Afghan factions drag the country into its
16th year of war. For an outside visitor, it is
hard to imagine the deprivation of this
once-proud capital, which has been a
stopping-off point for Subcontinent-bound
overland travellers from the middle ages till
the hippy era. One-third of the city lies in
ruins' that are so absolute that even long-time
locals cannot tell street comers anymore. The
neighbourhoods
: :
that are relatively intact are peppered with
landmines.
Kabul survived intact during the
Soviet-mujahideen war from 1979 till 1990.
Since then, however, it has been rocketed and
shelled into rubble: first during die siege by
thePakhtun
Hezb-e-Islami
chieftain,
GulbadinHekmatyar, and more recendy
during the Taliban bombardments of the
southern suburbs.
Since 1992, Kabulis have had virtually no
power and no water supply. Even kerosene
lanterns are a luxury and water has to be
pumped from wells. Food is scarce, but thanks
to smuggling across the battle-front south of
the city, edibles are still trickling into the
capital. However, the people have to pay exorbitant prices in hard currency. Yet, some locals
still seem to have die fuel to run generators to
tune into satellite television.
Kabul's people do not watch the news
much: news is all around diem.
Television-watching is an escapist exercise,
providing
a
flicker
of
sanity
amidstnever-ending mayhem. They have learnt
to live with fear. The whoosh of an incoming
rocket, or puffs of artillery from beyond the
Bala Hissar fortress overlooking the city,
now elicit little more than a raised eyebrow.
The Pakthun Factor
The Russians were badly mauled because they
underestimated Afghan resistance and failed
to learn from the mistakes of the British a
century ago. The fight with the Pakistan-based
mujahideen was a superpower proxy war, but
the civil war after the Soviet withdrawal in
1990 has been fuelled by regional rivalries.
Afghanistan is at the vortex of the geo-strategic
interests of Iran, Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, India,
Russia and the new Muslim republics of
Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan and
Kirghizia.
Overlapping ethnic, sectarian and ideological rifts are tugging at Afghanistan, with a
. :":L" :>: : -":":-■-: : ." : !":"■":I-1 : - : :'- : :: : "-:
ilii- iliii iiiSSi
watch
Kabul's i
people do
l
l
is all
the news much not
: news 0
';1
around them.
.......
_■.
"UsH^HH^BiStB
11
foreign backer standing firm behind each party.
Historical vendettas and bad blood tinge ties
between domestic factions, and to make things
more complicated, groups change their allegiance
with confusing regularity. Gen. Dostam used to be
a key Soviet ally, but switched allegiance to the
mujahideen in the nick of time. He protected the
government in Kabui from Hekmatyar's
onslaught
in
1992,
thenfeUoutandalliedhimselfwithHekmatyar. At
the moment, Dostam is on the same side as the
Taliban because Afghan Uzbeks (Dostam is one)
cannot stand Afghan Tajiks (Rabbani).
The dramatic rise of the Taliban in Afghanistan, its blitzkrieg-like advance from
Kandahar to Herat and now to Kabul's outskirts ,
ha ve provoked speculation about where their
support comes from. There are clues. "We want
to form an Islamic government based on the
precepts of the Holy Koran and recommendations
of the Prophet," explained a Taliban commander
in Herat, Sayed Abdul Malek, to a visiting French j
ournalist recently. Since the fall of Herat, women
there can no longer go to school or work,
There is now general agreement thai, the
Taliban has been trained, funded and guided
primarily by the Pakistani military, and in
particular, its powerful security wing, the
Inter-Services Intelligence (ISO. The reason is
largely the so-called 'Pakhtun Factor1. Afghan
Pakhtuns have blood ties with Pakistani
Pakhtuns of the Northwest Frontier Province (N
WFP). Afghan Pakhtuns had ruled Kabul in an
almost unbroken line since the 18th century,
until they were replaced by Rabbani's
Tajik-dominated government in 1992. During
the Soviet war, Western aid channeled through
the IS1 in Pakistan mostly ended up with Afghan
Pakhtun
mujahideen
groups,
primarily
Hekmatyar's Hezb-e-Islami.
In the post-Soviet power struggle in Kabul,
Pakistani Pakhtuns backed their compatriots
across the border. But then Hekmatyar
r
was sidelined by Rabbani and Masoud, and
the insult became too much for Pakhtuns on
both sides to stomach. The Taliban, then, is
their joint instrument to overthrow the Tajiks.
The trouble is that the Taliban is mostly
made up of young conservative Sunnis from
the madrasas of Baluchistan, which means
that they are anathema to Iranian-backed Afghan faction leaders like Ismail Khan of Herat.
This tangle has brought Teheran-Islamabad
relations to their nadir, and squandered decades of careful nurturing of Iran by successive
Pakistani governments.
Bad
blood
mark
s -ties between domestic
factions. Af g han Uzbeks
cannot stand Afghan Tajiks'■
' , ■' .: ■■ '/ .; ■' . \-.- : :■ '■: ;. ■ - : - ::■ i/7
12
The Taliban's first rush towards Kabul in
March was stopped on its tracks by a massive
counter-attack by Rabbani's largely-Shi'ite
Jamiat Islami. This time, they have been more
successful. Even so, one learns quickly in
Afghanistan that nothing is what it seems. The
Taliban is divided into two factions: the
Durranis and theGhilzai. The ISI has coddled
the Ghilzai tribes across the border from
Peshawar, but presently Taliban is dominated by the royalist Durranis from southern
Afghanistan.
It is difficult to say how the ISI plans to
tackle this complication, but the Taliban cub
could grow into a ferocious adult that ignores
its commands. Meanwhile, the Pakistan foreign office and Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto
are making desperate attempts at damage control by mending fences with Iran. Bhutto's visit
to Tehran in early November did little to allay
Iranian fears, however. Official Teheran newspapers shed traditional diplomatese to biast
Taliban and its Pakistani supporters—even
accusing Pakistan of collaborating with the
United States to sabotage Asian solidarity!
November/December 1995 HIMAL
C o v e r
F e a t u r e
Even long-time locals
cannot tell street
corners anymore
Pakistan's diplomatic isolation, many agree is caused by its overplaying the Pakhtun card in backing Taliban. And the policy has come
in for stinging attack even within Pakistan. "Most thinking Pakistanis
are far from euphoric about the Taliban's military prowess and its
recent, somewhat over-publicised successes," says Pakistani scholar
Eqbal Ahmad. "They are seriously worried about the consequences of
Pakistan being drawn into the Afghan quagmire."
Pakistan Isolated
Just as the Afghan crisis has been blamed for the explosion of sectarian
violence in Karachi, the rise in the power of the drug barons in the
Taliban issue shows signs of spilling over and destabilising Pakistan's
politics. Reports of an abortive coup by generals sympathetic to the
religious radicals sent jitters throughout the Country. According to
Pakistani commentator M. B. Naqvi, many army officers are believed to
be sympathetic to the "fundamentalist agenda" in the military, which is
a legacy of the Islamisation process started by the late President Zia-ul
Haq. This is the background to the support provided to the Taliban in
Afghanistan.
Ironically, by wrecking Iran-Pakistan relations the Taliban has
undermined another Zia-ul Haq strategy; to give Pakistan 'strategic
depth' by bending over backwards towards the west (Iran) in order to
balance India's overwhelming presence to the east. Today, not only are
relations frosty with Iran, but much to Islamabad's consternation, the
Indians have been busily repairing and refurbishing the Afghan Air
HIMAL November/December 1995
Force at its base in Bagram oUtside Kabul. The Mig-21s flying out of
Bagram have already proved their worth in blasting the Taliban
frondines. This unlikely convergence between the strategic interests of
Iran, the United States, Russia and India has isolated Pakistan.
Says Eqbal Ahmad: "Moscow has been supportive of Rabbani and
views both Taliban and Hekmatyar with apprehension. The role of
India and the United States is minimal, and Washington knows that
whoever rules in Kabul will be amenable to U.S. influence."
Islamabad's original economic game-plan was to bring peace in
C o v e r
Afghanistan so it could profit from being the
conduit for Central Asian trade, It would then
offer Karachi as the access to the sea. But
Afghan peace has become a distant dream, and
with a whole chunk of southern Afghanistan
in its hands, it is the Taliban rather than
Pakistan that is profiting from Central Asian
trade, which continues clandestinely. Some
Taliban-watchers say the group is also financing its war by taxing the smugglers: a revenue
source that gives it greater independence from
its Pakistani mentors.
For the moment, the focus is on Kabul
and which way the front line will move in
coming months. If Hekmatyar joins forces
with Taliban from the south, and if Dostam
can deploy his newly-acquired weaponry from
Uzbekistan, the battle for Kabul will have
begun in earnest. But even if Taliban succeeds
in taking Kabul, the Tajiks under their warrior
chief Masoud will just take the war to the
mountains and keep on fighting guerilla-style,
much the same way he battled the Russians.
Looking down from the Khyber Pass at the
rugged, barren valley tfiat descends down to
Jalalabad, visitors are whipped by a bitter
14
F e a t u r e
winter wind that howls down from the Hindu
Kush. It is a blast from the past, bringing back
ghosts of history's travellers who have passed
this spot. Today's developments in Afghanistan have become inextricably linked Lo events
on this side of the Khyber, and to the Subcontinent beyond
With rqjgrisfrom Becna Sarwar in Lahore* PrafvlBtdwai in
New Delhi, Wilhum van Jen Rijt in Herat, and Naseem
Zebra in Islamabad. The photographer Arun Jetlie ii with
The Indian Express.
November/December 1995 HIMAL
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Let us show you
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if
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D
■ Field Marshal S.H.FJ.Manekshaw, deliv
ering a lecture on The Quality of Leadership in
Delhi on 27 October, blasted India's political
top rung with heavy verbal artillery, inflicting
severe casualties on a lot of egos inside the
conference hall. Sam Bahadur, as the gutsy
former Chief of Army Staff
has been known since he served with the
Indian Gorkhas,said that in the four decades
since the British left India, "people have done
nothing except make excuses and procreate."
In fact, the only people to get
a thumbs up from the
couldn't-care-less
commander were the martial
hillmen. Fearlessness is an
attribute of leadership, he said,
and "a man who says he is not
frightened is either a liar or a
Gorkha." But Sam Bahadur
dai, eutai kura, where are
these fearless Gorkhas in the
leadership echelons of the
Indian army? What use is
fearlessness without rank?
■ "India, Australia drifting
apart", said the
Times of India headline of 31 October, Sure,
Canberra and New Delhi, both land-locked
capitals, have eyes on the Indian Ocean and
are engaged in a geopolitical shadow dance.
But it turns out what the Columbia University
scientists meant was that the Subcontinent
and the Island Continent were floating apart in
geological time, at a rate of a few centimetres
every year. This is because the crustal plate on
which both landmasses rest is cracking up. Oh
well, plate tectonics do have this uncanny
ability to divine geopolitical shifts.
The column-inches devoted to SAPTA say
it all—who is keen on a South Asian preferential trade arrangement and who not. Pakistan
ratified SAPTA on 23 October. The Rising
Nepal headlined it. The Indian Express buried it
as a two-column-inch item deep in page 11
(see right). Incidentally, all South Asian countries have now ratified SAPTA. The knot is to
be tied on 7 December when SAPTA becomes
operational, but when is consummation?
H The Kashmir story is all about the "quantum of autonomy" that is feasible to provide
the Valley's clamouring masses, writes B.G.
16
M
Verghese. The one-time dragon-slayer editor
has longgiven up daily journalism to focus on
long-term issues of development and politics.
He is presently engaged with harnessing the
waterresourcesofthelndianNortheastatone
end of the Himalaya and seeking answers to
Kashmiri
problems on the other.
Inanarticlein The
Indian
Express,
Verghese suggests
that there is no reason not to restore
the J&K flag or to
let the state issue
its own currency
notes and postage
stamps. These are
critical times for
LheKashmirissue,
and he believes
that "the haze
could be lifting."
Adds an optimistic
Verghese,
"The
direction is set. It is
time to commence
the journey. Only those who dare to travel
may hope to arrive.11
B It does not hurt to have a Minister one
knows serving as Information and Broadcasting top boss, and P.A.Sangma certainly knows
that there is more to Nepali-speakers than
bahadurs and chaprasis. In fact, Sangma cares
af
deeply about election arithmetics and the importance of Nepali-speakers of the
Indian Northeast. And so when the union
minister from Meghalaya recently was
given the I&B portfolio, he promised more
Nepali programmes on the air for the Northeast and North Bengal. Speaking to a delegation of the Assam Gorkha Sammelan, he
said Siliguri's AIR radio station would be
spruced up, and more time would be allotted
to Nepali language programmes from
Guwahati as well. If all these promises are
kept, don't you think there will be too much
Nepali on air?
Us Do motorcycle rallies promote language
and culture? Gert-Matthias Wegner, the
Bhaktapur-based German ethnomusicologist,
thinks they do just the opposite. The annual
rally by the Nepal Ehasha Parishad, he wrote
in a letter to The Kathmandu Post, "gives us the
impression that the end of Newari Culture has
arrived." The motor-cyclists who invaded
Bhaktapur on the Nepal Sambat New Year
polluted the town with the exhaust fumes and
sound blasters playing commercial Hindi film
music and American pop. Wegner's suggestion to the easy riders: "How about talking
Newari with your children and encouraging
them to learn one of the Newari musical
traditions?"
D In Nepal, Paradise Partly Lost, was the
headline of the lead article in the 15 October
New York Times Sunday travel section. This is
probably the most important travel page in the
world, which does the work of a
million-dollar advertising campaign, Rather
than a glowing account of a new travel
destination, the norm for the section, the piece
by a former British volunteer in Kathmandu
named Susan Ram, offers a sober and
essentially correct reading of Nepali
tourism. Ram directs tourists away from
the polluted and garbage-ridden lanes of
Kathmandu and directs instead to outlying
Valley towns such as Bungamati and
Kirtipur. She might have added that, despite
the relentless architectural devastation that
is overtaking Kathmandu and Patan,
there remain neighbourhoods and
monuments that have resisted the
trend. The best guide to these gems, of
course, is Desmond Doig's, My Kind of
Kathmandu, and now (although 1 have yet to
see it) Keith Dowman and Kevin Bubriski's
The Power Places oj Kathmandu.
November/December f99S HIMAL
■ Himal's State Demand Counter, sensitive
to the slightest tremor brought about by agi
tation for autonomy and/or self-determina
tion, has registered one more epicenter on
the Indian landmass. The Garo have just put
in their request: they want to break away
from Meghalaya, which they do not like
because it is dominated by the Khasi. Chief
Minister S.C. Marak, however, was curt in his
reply: "A further division of Meghalaya is not
possible." The demand for a separate Garoland
has not yet picked up enough steam to cause
concern to the law-enforcement authorities,
says the Director General of the state's police,
D.N. Srivastava. Oh, shall just we wait, then?
$£ "The Case for Uttarakhand" is a study by
B.K. Joshi, Director of the Girl Institute of
Development Studies, according to which a
separate hill state of Uttarakhand is perfectly
viable in terms of area and population, and
naysayers be damned. He says the Uttaiakhand
state would be larger than Punjab, Haryana, or
Kerala, and the 16th largest in the India.
Financial viability cannot be a criterion, says
Joshi, for then most states would fail the test.
The revenue and expenditure of Uttarakhand
would be significantly higher than Himachal
Pradesh's. Okay, we get the gist, Joshisaab. But
the fire seems to be nearly out in U tiarakhand.
What to do?
■ Here's something we already knew but it
bears hearing once more. "School textbooks
and media coverage in India and Pakistan
perpetuate and sustain a negative image of
relations between the two countries." This in a
study on Confidence-building in South Asia,
published by a Washington, D.C. think tank
and prepared by Samina Yasmeen and Aabha
Dixit, who claim that "dissenting voices" can
nevertheless be heard in both countries about
the "persona" of its neighbour. However, these
voices are hushedup by the respective govern
ments and consciously or unconsciously
marginalised by the media, "The myth of the
enemy" is alive and well in India and Pakistan,
according to Yasmeen and Dixit.
Girl Trafficking Meets a Determined
Roadblock," and another, a photo
essay, looked at India's child
labourers-carpet weavers of Uttar
Pradesh and matchstick makers of
Sivakasi. "KashmirinFlames: Why
India Hides from the Truth," reported on the six-year strife in the
Valley from the perspective of a
doctor in the Government Hospital
for Psychiatric Diseases in Srinagar.
According to Dr. Abdul Baig,
Kashmiris who used to shun psychiatric help because it was embarrassing, today line up at his clinic,
sometimes a hundred deep.
recognisable honchos hide behind upturned
collars and newspapers. In Kathmandu 2003,
"Direction was guaranteed, no questions were
asked. Soon people from, all over were finding
Asia's own Switzerland a better place to stash
their, urn, extra cash."
M The parting shot of Molly Moore andjohn
Anderson, the husband-wife South Asia correspondents for The Washington Post who flew
back home recently, was a series of long and
detailed articles on Subcontinent Social Sorrows. One article reported on "Nepal's Shame:
■ SAPTA Sceptics is the term for
those who feel that preferential trading
among South Asian countries is for
the birds, and will never make it to the
ranks of ASEAN, NAFTA, AFEC, EC,
and
other
such
acronymous
gathabo.ndho.ni. Shobhan Saxena,
writing in TO! is not a SAPTA Sceptic. He
believes that if a seven-member agreement is
not possible due to the embedded Indo-Pak
animosity, then Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, and
Nepal should go for an economic alliance of
their own. Now, now, Mr. Saxena, does the
yearning for SAPTA mean that we should tuck
our heads in the Thar desert sand? How much
copra do you think Nepal can buy from Sri
Lanka, and how many bushels of high-altitude barley would Serendib want in return?
- Chhetria Patrakar
The Asiaweek cartoonist was prophetic in
more ways than one. A couple of months
before the new Finance Minister of Nepal,
Ram Sharan Mahat, announced his plans to
convert Nepal into a international financial
centre, Asiaweek carried in its cartoon column
"The Illustrated Prophesies" a Kathmandu
street scene circa 2003. Shady customers
approach the First Himalayan Bank, King
Tribhuvan appears in mufflers, a Nepali
politico is led away in handcuffs, and various
HIMAL November/December !995
17
a
t
u
The Power of Compassion or
The Power of Rhetoric
A Report on the Fourth International Conference on Buddhist
Women
by Kim Gutschow
Devotee at Thupchen Gumba,
Lo Manthang.
WHILE THE HILL COUNCIL elections in
Ladakh made the headlines, the summer of
1995 also saw in Lehthe Fourth International
Conference on Buddhist Women, under the
aegis of Sakyadhita, an international
organisation of Buddhist women founded in
1986 by Ven. Karma Lekshe Tsomo. Opened
with much pomp and ceremony, the conference soon got down to business, that of stimulating discussion among Buddhist women from
many different traditions and nationalities.
The conference boasted a wide range of
speakers from all over Buddhist Asia, as well as
Europe and North America, The diverse topics
addressed included establishing a lineage of
female teachers; life among Burmese, Ladakhi,
Zangskari and Nepali mans; prostitution in
Thailand; empowering strategies for women
in the Netherlands; Tibetan women in exile; as
well as the question of why there were no
female geshes in traditional Tibet.
Although topics and paper styles ranged
widely, three key themes kept cropping up in
the discussions: education of Buddhist women,
difficulties faced by Buddhist women today,
and the appropriation of the Asian Buddhist
experience by Western Buddhists.
"The iBurmese! nuns derive their stdtusfrom
association with the monks andfwm the part
they play in enabling the monks to separate
from the worldly. Therefore, equality and
independencemay notbeanattractive proposition for them, but rather threatening and
ton/using to their basic seme of religious
identity..."
-HirokoKawanami in "Buddhist Nuns
in Transition: The Case of Burmese
Thil A-Shin"
Many Western and Asian women spoke with
urgency for improved education for Buddhist
nuns and laywomen in a rapidly modernising
world. Hiroko Kawanami, however, cautioned
that such changes might be detrimental to the
18
NovemberlDetmber 1995 HIMAL
very community that was supposed to benefit.
Kawanami pointed out that it is not enough to
recommend improved education; one must
also consider how these 'improvements' would
change the status of the participating women.
Unless there were concrete plans for new
social roles, and a correspondingly flexible
society accepted women in new positions, the
changes introduced may be disastrous at worst
or ineffectual at best. Kawanami noted that
since Burmese nuns serve as invaluable mediators between monks and lay people an education that 'frees' them of this status simultaneously deprives them of their critical niche in
that society.
This p oint direc tly challenged Ven. Lekshe
Tsomo's view that Buddhism must adapt itself
to the changing times to remain popular and
viable in Asian as well as in Western societies.
Since the focus of Lekshe's paper was on
making Buddhism attractive for young Asians,
it touched only briefly on how rapidly changing Asian societies might find new roles for
revamped Buddhist nunneries.
One Ladakhi nun, Jamyang Palmo,
stressed the need for nunnery reforms, but
provided few suggestions for the religious
roles of nuns in the future. Ani Palmo noted:
"Evolutionofa well-considered socio-economic
and monastic educational plan for the nuns
seems to be the crying need of the hour..." Yet
her pleas for the uplifting of Ladakhi nuns rang
somewhat hollow, given the strange silence of
Ladakhi women throughout much of the conference, with the exception of the renowned
physician Dr. Lhadrol Khalon.
The same could not be said for Ladakhi
men: Dr. Tsering Norbu, Tashi Rabgyas,
Lobsang Tsewang and Jamyang Gyaltsan all
contributed to the debate on how to "uplift"
the status of women in Ladakh. Seeing these
men, eloquent as they were, propound upon
the situation of Ladakhi women, while the
well-edu cated and mellifluous Lada"khi women
who had organised the conference sat. at the
back, was disheartening.
Of course, one might consider from the
contribution of the Ladakhi men that the issue
of women's education has at last achieved a
level of awareness which means that action
might actually be taken. As Ant Palmo pointed
out, the move towards educating and
modernising Ladakhi nuns will need the wholehearted supponof the Ladakhi Buddhist Association (LBA) as well as the AB-LadakhGompa
Association. Interestingly, neither the newly
elected head of the LBA, nor Stogldan
HIMAL November/December 1995
Rimpoche, head of the Gompa Association,
had concrete suggestions to offer for
modernising the roles of nuns in Ladakh.
In fact, the Stogldan Rimpoche seemed
more concerned about preserving his own
order of Mahayanism than helping nuns effect
social change. At the ground-breaking ceremony for a new Mahabodhi Nunnery,
Rimpoche mentioned the need to preserve
Ladakh's ancient religious lineages (i.e.,
Mahayana), thereby implying that Mahayana
traditions be included in Mahabodhi's
Theravada education curriculum.
"Buddhist women are casting off traditional
and outmoded restraints to dedicate themselves to implementing and promoting Buddhist practice... Remembering the kind influence of my own mother, I pray that women
working jor inner peace, and through that
peace in the world, may be blessed with
success." - message from the Dalai Lama
While the Dalai Lama optimistically offered
his words of wisdom, many speakers repeated
tales of woe concerning Buddhist women today. C, Kabilisingh from Thamnrasat University in Thailand presented a controversial paper on Thai Buddhism and prostitution, which
was welcomed for its unflinching portrayal of
the darker side of one Buddhist society.
Ani Palmo's paper lamented the fact that
Ladakhi nuns were at present "no better than
household maid servants", while K Devendra
spoke passionately about the loss of the
Bhikunni (nun) order in Sri Lanka, and the
difficulties encountered in efforts to
reintro-duce it. She noted that the
present-day order of Bhikkus (monks) in Sri
Lanka was reintro-duced from Burma and
Thailand by Dutch and British trading ships
only two centuries ago, the leaders in this
order were fiercely opposed to the
resurrection of a sister order of nuns. She also
referred to her current research into die
deadly eight Gurudhamma vows, which the
Buddha supposedly gave to the first nuns. In
fact, these could be shown to be "later
interpolations by Brahmin misogynists,"
Devendra said.
The founder of Ladakh's Mahabodhi Centre and of its recently proposed nunnery, Ven.
Sanghasena, speaking on women's rights, stated
that Buddhist women "generally live their lives
with a compartmentalised mind", dividing
their time between the temple, the home and
the supermarket. He concluded that "this gives
rise to much tension and conflict in life", but
failed to point out that Buddhist men may face
the same tensions. This writer has observed
that monasteries have more difficulty in balancing their 'worldly' obligations (collecting
taxes, running shops, hiring water carriers)
with'otherworldly1 spiritual pursuits than nunneries do, simply because the monasteries
have more wealth to manage.
"It appears that very jew Buddhist Western
women want to describe what they see in
contemporary Eastern women's realities because it challenges their faith in Western
Buddhism's egalitarian potential, ■ - 5,
Schneiderman in "Appropriate Treasure?
Self-Reflections on Women, Buddhism,
and Cross-Cultural Exchange"
An issue that lay at the heart of the conference,
but which barely drew a murmur of discussion
from the audience, was the question of
West-em women's appropriation of the
Eastern Buddhist practice. The dialogue
between two very different experiences of
Buddhism, the Western and the Eastern, is
problematic in light of the imperialistic and
orientalistic strategies that have accompanied
Western knowledge in the past and present.
Schneiderman's paper, while provocative, had its shortcomings. It began by reifying
the divide betwee n Western and Asian women
to a void an essentialism that assumes all women
have solidarity based on gender alone. However, by stressing the divide between Eastern
and Western Buddhist women, Schneiderman
overlooked the cross-cutting identities ofmany
women today. There are Asian women who
live and teach in the West, Western women
who live in the East, and many other women
who occupy the imaginary community stretching from Zangskar to Cambridge, Canberra to
Calcutta. Some of these women may reject the
'strategic essentialism' of Gayatri Spivak and
other feminists, while others might applaud
the gender solidarity efforts to assist the
struggles of Asian women.
Schneiderman's talk also demands comment in other respects. She noted that "our
contemporary Eastern Buddhist sisters remain
at worst mute, atbest anomalous participants
in what, from one perspective, can be seen as
a primarily male-dominated religious power
structure." In direct challenge to
Schneiderman's allegation, the conference
boasted several Asian Buddhist women who
were eloquent proponents of feminism in their
respective Buddhist traditions. The nuns
and laywomen from Burma, Nepal, Thailand,
19
Vajra (literally-flash of
lighting), is an artists'
condominium, a transit
home for many,
providing a base during
months of hibernation
and creative inspiration.
Its isolation, graphic
splendour and peaceful
ambience, make an ideal
retreat from the clock of
pressure.
KetaktSheth
Inside Outside
I stayed a week at the
Vajra, by which time I
had become so fond of it
that I stayed another.
John Collee
The London Observer
in Kathmandu,
the Vajra
Swayambhu, Dallu Bijyaswori, PO Box 1084, Kathmandu
Phone 271545, 272719 Fax 977 1 271695 Telex 2309 HVGHPL
a
Sri Lanka, Tibet, Ladakh, and Bhutan who
spoke at the conference are neither mute nor
anomalous, nor are their Buddhist traditions
as male-dominated as Western feminists initially might assume. Although Schneiderman
warned against patronising Western attitudes
that presume to'know'AsianBuddhist women's
experience, her own paper came perilously
close to such a stance.
The dialogue be tween Asian and Western
Buddhist experiences will be more fruitful if
each side truly makes an effort to understand
the other's tradition, before coming to conclusions. Lekshe Tsomo, who has lived and practiced for years in both Asian and Western
contexts, had some interesting advice. She
noted that Asian Buddhist leaders might team
something from the trials teachers Face in
adapting Buddhism in Western post-industrial
societies. While Asian Buddhists are not stumbling over each other to tell Western Buddhists how best to spread the Dharma, Westerners often take their appreciation of Buddhism a step too far and become back-seat
drivers in the Buddhist chariot.
Thankfully, these Western 'friends of the
Dharma' were few and far between at die
conference, as was the attempt to 'speak for1
Asian women. There were so many speaking
for themselves at the conference already.
While one might have expected more
debate about these central issues, the torpid
audience seemed content to bask in silent
appreciation or (perhaps?) bored resignation.
Perhaps a wider and more diverse audience
might have boosted participation. While the
speakers came from over 14 countries, and
over 100 nuns from a variety of Buddhist
traditions were present, the audience turnout
was somewhat disappointing. The result was a
conference in which speakers addressed an
already converted audience.
However, the organisers must be com
mended for bringing so many Buddhist tradi
tions under one roof. In the discussion groups,
a free-flowing dialogue between Buddhist
women of different traditions did emerge,
which alone made the conference worthwhile.
To sit in a circle with Sri Lankan matriarchs,
Zangskari nuns, and a Ladakhi nurse, discuss
ing the question of whether motherhood or
celibacy offered a better chance to leam the
true meaning of compassion, was a fascinating
experience.
fc.
K. Gutschow is a Harvard anthropologist who has worked
in Zangskar and Ladakh since 1989.
HIMAL November/December 1995
t
u
A South Asian in
American Academia
An annual conference which has its downside, but the ups
seem to more than make up for it.
by Binod Bhattarai
DOES CONFERENCING ON South Asia provide "intellectual fun?" It does, says Prof. Joseph W. Elder of the University of Wisconsin
in Madison, the acknowledged centre of South
Asian learning in North America. The "fun"
event which brou ght over 460 academics from
all over the U.S. to this midwestem city in late
October was the annual meeting on South
Asia, which will celebrate its 25th anniversary
next year.
There are enough reasons to criticise this
annual gathenng of PhDs—that it is North
America-dominated, that the subjects are
India-centric, or that the region's own voice is
absent. There is also grumbling that the
organisers favour theory rather than
"action-research" or policy prescriptions. However, the three-day affair is the only conference
in the world that looks at Soudi Asia with any
continuity. The papers may be theoretical, but
they provide analytical insight that people
closer to the ground may well miss and whose
views may reflect nationalist or other biases.
Despite the obvious gaps, the sheer volume of papers presented and discussed in
simultaneous forums was impressive. There
was something for everybody, and topics
ranged from Laloo Piasad Yadav's Bihari Raj to
the Bharatiya Janata Party's ascendance in
Gujaratand Maharashtra; froman ethnographic
discussion based on conversations between
women in a Kathmandu beauty parlour discussing the why a lady named Indira had
shaved her head and lit her mother's funeral
pyre, to a paper analysing 110 love tetters to
explore "the issues of incipient literacy and
social change" among Magars in a Nepali village called Junigaon,
The papers dealing with India took up,
among other things, "Hindu-Muslim Land-
scapes of the 18th and 19th Century India",
"Cultural Movement for Autonomy in
Jharkand", "Cultural Geography of Khush: A
Cybernetic Place for South Asian Lesbigay
Interactions", "The Press and the Foreign
Policy Change in India", and "The Endurance
of Nargis."
One researcher traced how grandparents
on extended visits from India tend to mould
their grandchildren's sense of self as
Indian-Americans, Another investigated
what was authentic and what impure in
Indian dance, delving into Kathak-tap,
Kathak-jazz,
and
Kathak-FlamencoandKathakBharat-Natyam.
The researcher questioned if a bal ance o f"
das-sical purity and artistic integrity" could
be maintained while participating in the
"technological processes of a growing public
culture. Polk beliefs and practices were not
left out either: one researcher discussed
"Why Some Tibetan Babies Change Sex
After Birth: Popular, Religious and Medical
Explanations in Exile."
Beyond forays into always-interesting
psycho-social research, the conference had its
share of technical, subject-focused inquiry,
such as "Species Composition and Dynamics
of Temperate and Sub Alpine Forests in
West-central Nepal," or "Population and
Habitat of the Saurus Crane in Nepal's
Taiai," or "Patterns and Sources of Variation in
Bihari Hindi."
SAARC at Madison
The annual conferencebeganasaninitiativeof
some scholars .including Elder, who had come
together with high school teachers to find
instruction material on South Asia. Within
two years, the group changed focus to become
a full-fledged conference on South Asia. "This
21
is one of the few conferences which is just
sheer intellectual exchange," says Elder. "There
are no business meetings, no membership
drives, just intellectual fun."
The only other regular forum in which
South Asia is discussed in North America is at
the annual meeting of the Association of Asian
Studies, organised by the University of Michigan. However, Japan, China and East Asia
dominate the discourse at the AAS, and South
Asianists prefer the cosier climate at Madison.
The deliberations in Madison covered all
SAARC countries except Bhutan—no, there
was no paper on either the Druk Yul's much
touted tourism successes or the question of
Bhutanese refugees. Pakistan lagged far behind India in the number of papers presented,
but the Mohajirs did maintain a presence
through a paper on "Re-forming of Pakistani
(Mohajir) Nationalism" after the 1972 Karachi
riots. On Sri Lanka, the scholars went for
post-colonial identity, the "Third Elam
War", and Jaffna nationalism. The panel
on Maldives had one paper on "Ritual
Politics, Islamic Identity and Island Nationalism,"
and
another
on
"Sixteenth-century
Nationalism
in
an
Indian Ocean Nation
State."
The Nepal studies
papers comprised mainly of
research
by
foreign
scholars. Selma Sonntag,
of California State University at Humboldt,
analysed the difficulties
faced by ethno-linguistic
groups as they compete
for state recognition and
resources. The case of the
Tamang is one of a language in search of an ethnic group or
pan-Tamang identity, she argued, while with
the Tharu it is a case of an ethnic group
searching for a language. A Nepali faculty
member of the University of Wisconsin, Gau
tarn Vajracharya, discussed the "Vedic Axis
Mundi and Ashokan Pillar", and there was
considerable interest in another paper on "Authenticity and Authority in the Imagination
of the Buddha's Birthplace.1' Striking one
blow for SAARC scholarship, a Sri Lankan
named Arjun Guneratne presented a paper
on "the Vicissitudes of the Tharu identity
in Nepal."
22
The large r issues of contemp orary Nepali
society, such as acrimonious debate surrounding the recent Arun III project cancellation, or the pains of democratic transition
in different aspects of Nepali life, were conspicuously absent. The same was the case of
many contemporary issues that national
scholars in the various South Asian countries
arc grappling with. The same was the case
with the broader issues of contemporary
South Asian discourse, such as sharing water
resources, trade and regionalism. SAPTA,
about to go into force, might as well have
been the name for a newly discovered planet
as far as the conference was concerned.
India Dominates
Even though it is the conference of choice for
South Asia scholars, the attendance of scholars
from the Subcontinent has always been low at
Madison. The organisers estimate that about
15 percent of those who attended Madison
this year were based in and working in South
Asia, That the sessions appear to be
"India-dominated" might also explain the
low turnout of scholars. The number of
papers on India is only a reflection of who
sends the proposals, says Elder. "We don't
structure the area emphasis,"
Actually, there is a simple reason for the
tilted focus: there is more money to study
India, says Prof. Robert Goldman of the University of California at Berkeley. "People often
tend to use India interchangeably with South
Asia. This is a problem and other countries
need better representation," The makeup of
Madison's South Asia faculty, which screens
presentations, also probably plays a part, says
anthropologist Beatrice D. Miller.
India studies received an initial boost
when they were funded with the surplus
non-convertible rupees earned from U.S. wheat
exports in the late 1950s under the programme
known as PL-480 (PL for 'public law1). Today,
the American Institute for Indian Studies, a
consortium of 47 American colleges and universities, has its own endowment. There is an
association for Pakistan but it is not as large or
as well-funded as the Indian one. The
Bangladeshi studies group has been around
for only a few years and the Sri Lankan one is
not operating. Nepal has a study group which
usually meets at Madison during the conference, but it has no money either to fund
research or to invite Nepali academics to
meetings..
Miller says that the Madison conference
serves as a forum for scholars to test research
ideas, and many books have been nurtured in
the Madison's meeting halls. Among the
cutting-edge research to be presented at the
annual meetings have been those on Harappa
and Mohenjodaro archaeology and on Tibetan
Buddhism.
But how relevant is Madison to the "real"
South Asia? Scholars in South Asian universities rarely get to see the papers presented here,
which means that the research will rarely
receive peer review from those on the ground.
But Frank F. Conlon of the University of
Washington, Seattle, thinks the Madison conference is useful regardless. "This is a one-stop
chance to see what other people are talking
about or are interested in. I come here to
recharge my batteries," says Conlon. "We arc
always trying to refine our knowledge, and
these discussions eventually become part
of what is taught about South Asia at U.S.
universities"
D. Bhattarai is a Kalhmandu journalist attending
the University of Wisconsin at Madison as a Fulbrighl
scholar.
November/December 1935 HIMAL
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e
I
t all began with a Buddhist from Burma
named U Thant. As UN Secretary General,
he made a pilgrimage to Lumbini in 1967
and reportedly wept at seeing the sorry condition of the Buddha's birthplace. His heartache
woke Nepalis up to the fact that the preservation of what was clearly an international heritage was an urgent responsibility,
A committee, which is now called the
Lumbini Development Trust (LDT), was formed
to look into ways to develop Lumbini. In
1978, a master plan backed by the UN and
designed by world-renowned Japanese architect Kenzo Tange provided the outline for
preserving the ancient ruins as well as turning
an inaccessible, barren site into one thatwould
appeal to pilgrims and tourists alike. This
ambitious plan was to bring much pride to
Nepal's Buddhist legacy.
Today, nearly 20 years later, little progress
has been made in the effort to develop Lumbini.
The Lumbini Development Project has been
At the sacred site of SiMhartha Gautam's birth,
archaeologists run amok, architects are needlessly
ostentatious and sects outspend each other. The meaning
of the dharmais greatly diluted.
by Rachana Pathak
a
t
u
marked by negligence and corruption, and the
lethargic implementation of the grandiose
scheme has brought little benefit to the locals,
many of whom were displaced by the Project.
Archeological work has caused great upheaval
within the sacred garden and some of the
devout speak of desecration. There seems
little doubt that the excavations, which were
to unlock the Sakyamuni Buddha's past, have
been irresponsible.
There are other problems, not the least of
which is the master plan itself. Tange's blueprint is ill-suited for the site because it indirectly promotes unnecessary andboastful competition among sects, and forces this hallowed
Buddhist site to be crowded by buildings and
monuments. Meanwhile, and more relevant,
the Trust's idleness and docility has made it
possible for several monastic groups to flout
design parameters.
A commemorative pillar of ungainly
marble tiles put up in memory of King
Mahendra back in 1964 seems to have begun
the avalanche of inappropriate architecture.
This was followed by an eternal flame that was
lit to commemorate a disconsolate United
Nations anniversary that no one even remembers. Lumbini, the pride of Nepal, birthplace
of the Light of Asia, has brought out the darker
side of those very administrators, professionals—and monks—who ostensibly seek to
honour the Buddha.
Birthplace
Siddhartha Gautam's date of birth is disputed,
ranging anywhere from 623BC to 543BC. On
her way from King Suddhodhana's palace in
Kapilvastu to Dewadaha, which lies about
40km east of Lumbini, Queen Mayadevi
stopped in Lumbini and gave birth to the
prince, who was later to renounce materialism
in pursuit of spiritual wealth, and give to the
world the philosophy that later was called
Buddhism.
Emperor Ashok made a pilgrimage to
Lumbini in 249BC and erected three pillars in
the area. The most famous of these stands in
Lumbini's Sacred Garden, near the pond and
Mayadevi temple. Its inscription reads: "Twenty
years after his coronation, King Priyadarsi,
Beloved of Gods, visited this spot in person
and offered worship at this place, because the
Buddha, the Sage of the Sakyas, was bom
here." What exactly the emperor meant by
'here' is contested, but the pillar remains the
strongest evidence that the Sakyamuni was
bom in this area.
Chinese travellers Fa Hsein (5th century
AD) and Hsuan Tsang (7th century AD) visited
Lumbini and left detailed accounts that provide further clues about the Buddha's birthplace and the location of King Suddhodhana's
palace where the prince lived the first 29 years
of his life. These sites were lost for eras, to be
discovered only in 1895. Khadga Shumsher,
the then governor of Palpa, and archaeologist
P. C. Mukherji were among the first to excavate
the site before the turn of century. Excavations
have continued throughout this century.
lange's Designs
The Tange master plan divided the eight square
km of land into three zones, which were
designed to assure the peace and spirituality
that are implicit in Buddhism. The tourist
village was to be comfortable, yet affordable.
The monastic zone's 41 plots would allow
HIMAL NovemberlDecemb& 1995
different sects of Buddhism to have their place
in Lumbini, the Theravadins in the western
part separated from the Mahayanans in the
eastern part. Groups that purchased plots
signed 99-year contracts and agreed to abide
by the rules set by the LDT. The central zone
of the Sacred Garden was to be maintained as
a sal and sisau forest around a central waterway, in an attempt to recreate the ancient
surroundings.
While the Tange plan has helped to protect the Sacred Garden from gracious donors
who are busy bestowing brick and concrete
structures in the area, it has its shortcomings.
The most grievous is that it is expensive,
requiring US$ 58 million in present-day prices
for its completion. While Nepal claims to have
spent the equivalent of USS10 million to provide infrastructure,, the project is overwhelmingly donor-dependent.
Marked by corruption, malfeasance and
bad management of a politicised leadership
and uninterested bureaucrats, less than 15
percent of the Tange plan has been completed.
Most of the construction is not yet finished,
not all plots have been let, and infrastructural
problems remain. While monastic groups all
seem keen to set up loud structures, no one
wants to pay for a sewage system that would
have little observable credit. Given the reliance on donors' generousity, the time frame
for Lumbini's development is indefinite. The
expectation of Japanese assistance flooding
Lumbini with easy money (which did not
happen) hindered realistic planning.
The master plan gives preference to those
with money, and this has led to unfair representation of Buddhism's various branches. This
is reflected in Nepal's own embarrassingly
small patch, and by the fact that the monastic
zone is dominated byjapanese Mahay ana sects.
Vajrayana, the Himalaya's own distinctive
contribution to Buddhism, is the most neglected, and a Nepali rimpoche complains
that the Bhotiya population of the High Himal
has to make do with visits to the shrines of
other sects,
Some Kathmandu planners are concerned
that Lumbini will not look 'Nepali' by. the time
Lumbini is fully developed, due to the absence
of Vajrayana monuments and the predominance of contemporary architecture in the
complex. Lok Darshan Bajracharya, King
Mahendra's private secretary who was appointed chairman of the LDT after the king's
death in 1972, does not see this as a problem
because "Buddhism does not bejong to one
Concrete Burmese stupa under construction in
Lumbini (top), and the stripped-down Mayadevi
temple structure.
country. It belongs to the whole world."
Bajracharya served as the LDT's chairman for a
decade, and, as a result, is praised and blamed
for much of what has happened or not happened at Lumbini.
Promoting a multi-million dollar enterprise representing spiritual enlightenment, the
Tange plan has sparked competition among
sects and brought out 'un-Buddhistic' tendencies such as factionalism—that, too, based on
nationality. Visiting pilgrim and tourist
groups tend to be restricted to their national
monasteries.. Korean pilgrims stay in Korean
temples, Thais in Thai, making quick forays
into the Mayadevi temple, which is really
the only 'secular' place amidst the tussle of
nationalities.
A type of militant Buddhism is emerging
in relations between Theravadins and
Mahayanans at Lumbini, which seems to reflect developing rivalry between these two
branches and the trend toward aggressive
proselytising in the larger world. The minority
Thai Theravadan monks, to strengthen their
position, offer fellowships to young Nepalis to
study in Thailand, with the hope to 'purify'
other types of Buddhism. Sri Lankan
Theravadins are doing the same. The Thais are
also building one of the largest icons statues of
25
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Disney's World
As the competition between countries and
sects is measured in money and monuments,
Lumbini is well on the way to becoming a
"religious Disneyland", observed a Western
scholar of Himalayan Buddhism who was part
of a UNESCO-sponsored trip to the site in
October.
Some monasteries have clearly forsaken
their ascetic ideals and taken on a commercial
atmosphere in their projected guest houses
and curio shops. The Chogye Order monastery of South Korea, when completed, will be
able to bed 300 visitors. The W. Linhson
Buddhist Congregation of France, and Bauddha
Dharmankur Sabha of Calcutta also have plans
for large guest houses.
The rule meant to keep buildings heights
below 60 feet so as not to detract from the
Ashok pillar and Mayadevi temple has already
been flouted by the Vietnam Phat Quoc Tu.
Meanwhile, a Japanese sect that wants to go
even higher, Nipponjan Myohoji, has received
special permission to purchase land in the
tourist zone. It has started construction of a
peace pagoda that upon its completion in the
year 2000 will soar 155 feet. This project also
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the Buddha in Lumbini, at a cost of USS 1.6
million. Burmese and Thai groups have purchased two adjacent plots for construction in
this flaunting of worldly wealth.
The commercialisation of Buddhism is
also seen in the behaviour of some monks who
reside in Lumbini. Rather than making do
with alms that pilgrims bring, some monks
make profits from them. Locals who live
outside the Lumbini perimeter maintain that
there is immoderate wining and womanising,
and one bhikshu is even called Ghatiya Baba
('the lowly one1) for his questionable conduct.
26
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will block the direct north-south view from
the Ashok pillar, "This is a travesty, but there
is nobody watching, least of all the Lumbini
Development Trust," says a despairing Nepali
architect.
Mature trees have been cut down. A plan
to build a high school for locals, promised at
the time of land acquisition, hasbeenscrapped.
The Yong Do monastery of South Korea has
been built in the middle of a greenery zone.
The two monasteries actually within the Sacred Garden (Mustang and Theravada), which
were there before the Tange plan was drafted,
were supposed to have been relocated but this
has not been done. Instead, the Mustang one
has started building a restaurant.
All these changes are occurring without
control, widiout restriction, and with indirect
support of the LDT, who is paying the infrastructure costs. Nothing more vividly highlights the Lumbini guardians' vulnerability to
foreign money than the Trust's inability to
enforce the Tange plan. If this laissez-faire
attitude continues, with overseers from abroad
building according to their whims and fancies, the world will have gained a tourist site,
but have lost a spiritual centre.
Irresponsible Archaeology
Questionable archaeological work marks the
activities within the Sacred Garden, which
holds the Mayadevi Mandir and its nativity
statue, the pond, the pillar put up by Emperor
The world is gaining a
tourist site, but losing a
spiritual ceritre.
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Design violations: Kenzo Tange's Master Plan
for turnbini.
Ashok, and the (onetime) sacred pipal tree. At
the Mayadevi temple, pilgrims who arrive to
pay homage to the Buddha's birthplace currently find an excavation site.
Three years ago, a contract was signed
between the Japanese Buddhist Federation
(JBF) and LDT to excavate the temple. The
work plan called for keeping precise records
relating to the original structure, reassembling
the temple using the same bricks in the same
positions, publishing frequent progress reports, and finding ways to safeguard the pipal
tree, which grew over the temple and was the
distinctive feature of the complex.
The archaeology team of Satoru Uesaka
(Japan) and Babu Krishna Rijal (Nepal) seems
to have broken almost every provision in the
original contract. The work progresses with
bureaucratic smugness, without any reports
being made public and little review of the
work that has been done. The team includes
no anthropologist, no Buddhist scholar, and
no historian either, though the inclusion of
experts from the various fields would have
added much insight and perspective. The only
thing that is more surprising is the absence of
remonstrations from the national and archaeological community and the lack of press coverage of the goings-on in the Sacred Garden.
So far, the JEF-LDT partnership has moved
the Mayadevi nativity scene to a temporary
shelter, ignoring its locational significance.
The cutting down of the sacred pipal tree has
provoked greater consternation. They are also
planning to build a replica of the Mayadevi
mandir somewhere nearby in the Sacred Garden, to house a modern-day replica of the
nativity statue that someone made.
November/December (995 HIMAL
t
As with the overall schedule of Lumbini,
the excavation seems to proceed without a
timeframe. Three years of work are said to
have yielded Mauryanpunchmark coins, terracotta pieces, and northern blackware pottery,
but not a single report has been published.
This excavation has extraordinary potential
because it holds the possibility of finding
pre-Buddha remains, which would provide
new information about that earlier era. The
archeo-logical world and the public deserve to
know about what is probably one of the most
important digs in the world.
"They are raping the Mayadevi Mandir,"
exclaims Basanta Bidari, a Nepali archeologisr.
who has been working in the area for eleven
years. He feels that Uesaka's team is reckless,
adding that their excessive secrecy strengthens speculation that smuggling is going on.
"Why are they doing their work behind a
sheet? What have they got to hide?" he asks.
Smuggling of artefacts has a !ong history
in Lumbini, as elsewhere in South Asia. Back
in 1897, German archeologist Dr. A. A, Puhrer,
is thought to have taken many pieces. The 17
stupas of Sagarhawa, about 20 km from
Lumbini, mentioned in Mukheiji's excavation
records, are all gone. Archaeologist Debala
MitrareportedlSvotive stupas in the Mayadevi
U Thant receives stupa offering in 1967.
u
Mandivin 1957, all of which had disappeared
by 1962, Many artefacts from Lumbini and its
surroundings dating from the Buddha's time
are today said to be in museums in India.
Recently, the JBF stopped its excavation
work, having been ordered by Bimal Bahadur
Shaky a, the previous LDT Member-Secretary,
to hand over all slides, videos, negatives and
pictures, and to write a report. The archaeologists' team has started working on a report,
but Uesaka seems flustered by this demand
and makes the point that "archaeology cannot
be rushed".
Pipa! Tree
Perhaps the most tragic action was trie 1993
felling of the pipal, which formed an integral
part of Lumbini's mental image for millions.
Its age was a matter of dispute—claims ran
anywhere from 80 to 500 years old. Mukherji's
records show that it was at least a hundred
years old. The tree definitely did not exist
during the Buddha's lifetime, but since
Lumbini's discovery in the modem era the tree
has had a unique religious significance for
standing over the Mayadevi temple. No
Lumbini photograph, artwork or mental recollection is without diis majestic pipal overspreading the rather drab white-washed structure of the temple.
The JBF-LDT team claims that the roots
were penetrating the mandir and that the tree
had to be destroyed in order to preserve the
temple. Also, the brick building (built by the
Rana, Keshar Shumsher, in the 1920s) stood
atop at least six different structures, and, according to the team, could not be excavated
without felling the tree.
John Sanday, a British architect and restorer who has worked in Kathmandu's
Hanuman Dhoka and Cambodia's Angko r Wa t,
believes inadequate research was done on
preserving the tree. There are ways to kill
certain roots or to control root growth, says
Sanday, who had suggested a work plan to
save the pipal as early as 1983. He is clearly
disturbed with what has happened. Puma
Man Shakya, the then LDT field manager and
the man who was ordered to axe the tree,
however, feels that there was no way around
doing away with the pipal. He is combative:
"As a botanist with 30 years' experience, I
challenge anyone anywhere in the world to
show me how you could have saved that
nuisance tree."
There is the unconfirmed report that JBF
paid LDT one lakh rupees for the felling, and
then used the tree to make dharma bead
necklaces and small sculptures to sell injapan
and elsewhere. Bimal Bahadur Shakya, die
previous LDT member-secretary, wrote an article in Sadhana, a Nepali digest, stating that
wood from the felled tree was being used for
such commercial purposes. Ram Briche, a
local from Lumbini, says he was one of those
who helped make planks for export. But Uesaka
of the JBF vehemently denies these charges,
insisting that he is being defamed by those
who are jealous of his team's work.
Uesaka says that the tree trunks have
been replanted on either side of the eternal
flame, and that saplings have been nurtured
from that same tree. The replanted stumps he
points to, however, are dead.
Withoutgoing into veracity of the charges
that have been made, suffice it to state that the
archaeological team of JBF-LDT has caused
rapid and unwelcome alterations in Lumbini.
Both the tree and earlier temple are gone. For
the moment, pilgrims are left to view the
Mayadevi image in a temporary shelter.
Amidst the Mosques
It is striking that Lumbini, what hasin modem
times become the major Buddhist pilgrimage
destination, is surrounded by a Muslim population. The road from Lumbini to Kapilvastu is
lined with 11 newly-built mosques, and more
HIWIAL November/December 1995
n
are to follow. Muslims, and a scattering of
Hindus, make up the population of the nearby
villages of Buddha Nagar, Padaria, and Parsia,
Less than 20 years ago, many of these people
lived in what is now the Lumbini compound.
Today, the Lumbini villagers say that they
received inadequate compensation when their
land was taken, and that the promised schools,
health posts, water system, electricity, and
better roads never materialised. The handover
happened during the Panchayat years when
they could not protest and they say, because of
the assurances that were given, they moved
without much fuss.
The Muslim villagers feel that they have
been exploited. Their conviction is only reinforced when they see the vast Buddhist wealth
being ostentatiously displayed in Lumbini by
rival monasteries. The sluggish implementation of the master plan has brought little
income to the villagers, who are employed
only as day labourers. Their familiarity with
the area could enable them to be earn income
from the pilgrim and tourism trades, but they
are excluded as outsiders benefit.
The villagers are obviously frustrated at
their condition, and the seven large fires that
have occurred in the Lumbini grounds in the
last few years are thought to be acts of arson,
presumably motivated by resentment.
The pace of life and level expectations are
at such variance within and without the
Lumbini complex, that one does wonder at the
cocoon that those inside—including the insular monasteries and their heads and hinders—
have created for themselves. Rijal of the LDT
maintains that it is the government's responsibility to care for areas outside Lumbini, but
this outlook ignores the dislocation which the
LDT itself ordered. Displaced Muslim peasants
are suffering in the name of Buddhism.
Trust Violation
Foryears.the Lumbini Development Trust has
looked the other way or not looked at all while
an international heritage was beingdespoiled.
At the same time, the Trust has done little to
fulfill its responsibilities of preservation and
conservation of other Sakyamuni-related areas such as Kapilvastu, Niglihawa, Gotihawa,
Sisahania, Kudan and Dewadaha, to which it
was recently given the mandate. Important
relics are carelessly thrown about, and some of
these sites do not even have controlled boundaries,
Lok Darshan Eajracharya, who chaired
the Trust from 1975 to 1985, blames LDT's
lacklustre performance on the indifference of
the present leadership. Speaking of Lumbini,
28
he says, "This kind of negligence did not occur in and more permanent," says Sakya.
But the instability of government, actions
my time. We planted most of the trees then, and
there was no violation of the master plan." There of foreigners, religious apathy, can only go so
are those who blame the Lumbini mess on the far to explain the rot in Lumbini. The persons
fact that the government in Kathmandu is who have held the chairs and membership of
consistently Hindu-dominated. Others, including the Trust thus far, whether Hindu or Buddhist,
Asha Ram Sakya, a former LDT and die mostly unimaginative bureaucrats who
Member-Secretary, single out for blame the have run Lumbini, must be held accountable
political instability of recent years. "Board more than any other group.
U Thant would still weep today, and
members change along with governments, and
are dius hindered in taking action. Currently, no Nepalis have to blame only themselves.
board is in session, I would wish that the LDT
management were less politicised,
The Battle of Kapilvastu
The long-standing controversy about the location of the palace where the Buddha spent
his princely years continues. Where is Kapilvastu, the capital of King Suddhodhana?
A credit-claiming game is being played out between archaeologists on eidier side of
the border, with Nepalis maintaining that the palace site was in Tilaurakot, and Indians
insisting that it was across in Piprahawa or Ganwaria. The controversy has escalated
during the last year.
In a sense, the debate is an empty quibble, since when the Sakyamuni lived there was
no Nepal and no India either. But modem-day archaeology is imbued with nationalist
purpose, and tourism to the authentic Kapilvastu means yen with a capital Y, and hence
the battle over Kapilvastu.
Historical Buddhist literature and accounts of Chinese travelers Fa Hsein and Hsuan
Tsang mention Buddha's palace as having high walls, a sal forest nearby, a clear view of
the Himalaya, and the Bhagirathi river flowing nearby. Nepali archaeologists maintain
that these are all evident in present-day Tilaurakot.
Indian archaeologists DebalaMitra and K.M. Srivastava, on die other hand, maintain
that Kapilvastu straddled where Piprahawa and Ganwaria are today. Their arguments are
based onsealsonacasket found in Piprahawa in 1988, which read"OmDeveputraVihare
Kapilvastu Bhikshu Mahasanghasa".
Critics of the Indians' thesis maintain
diat the small rooms at the Piprahawa and
Ganwaria excavations as well as inscriptions
prove beyond doubt that these were
monastic sites rather than a palace complex.
Some even claim that the casket in
question was stolen from Nepal by
archaeologists keen on claiming Kapilvastu for
India.
Nepali archaeologists Basanta Bidari and
Kosh Prasad Acharya add a further twist by
maintaining that the brick types found in the
sites in question could not have been made
before the 3rd century BC.
It would therefore not be possible to place die brick-structures in eidier Nepal and India
as the palace site, they argue. Their point complements the view of scholar Rhys David,
who suggested some hundred years ago that the palace must have been made of wood,
and would not have survived.
While the archaeological debates go on, the signboard painters south of the border
are active (see picture), and mere is anecdotal information that some people are presently
digging a ditch in Piprahawa to create a river to be called the Bbagirathi. Zee TV, the
channel beamed to India by Star TV, is working on a movie diat depicts a Gau tarn Buddha
born and raised south of the line which in the 20th century would become an
international border...
NwmberlDecembet 1995 HIMAL
• The Himalayan Spectacular •
the flight for breathtaking
views of Mount Everest and the
Eastern Himalayas.
> The Himalayan Awakening the early bird flight from
Pokhara, for a ring side view of
the Annapuma Range and
Western Mountains,
• Pokhara- Phewa Lake
gloriously reflecting the
Majesty of Fish Tail Mountain.
• Lumbini - Serene and
beautiful. Birthplace of Lord
Buddha.
• Royal Chit wan National
Park - Exhilarating Elephant
rides and wild animal sightings.
• Kuthinandu - Centre of
magnificent ancient temples
and stimulating Casino Action.
ROUTE MAP
------ i
For Passengers & Cargo
Charters to remote destinations*
NEC&N AIR
F
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Class of I960: Rajiv Gandhi
(fourth from left) at Doon.
Class of 1995, betow.
From Sea to
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s a Taste of SAARC
by Mahesh Uniyal
INDIA'S ELITE send their children to the
Doon School, at the idyllic foothills of Garhwal,
so that they are groomed to become the
country's future leaders. Soon, Doon may be
churning out leaders for all of South Asia.
The Doon, pre-eminent among India's
exclusive public schools, plans to start
30
admitting deserving pupils on
SAARC scholarships.
The school, which celebrated its 60th
anniversary in October with a gala affair, is
talking with the Indian government, which
will take up the matter with the SAARC Secretariat in Kathmandu. The old boy network is
said to have come in handy when Doon's
Headmaster Shomie Ranjan Das approached
the South Block with the proposal.
At present, there are only eight
Bangladeshis and eight Nepalis among the
about 450 boarder students. "We feel that
many parents from other South Asian coun-
NovmberlDecmber 1995 HIMAL
tries who send their children overseas would
prefer to send them to India, where they face
less cultural alienation," says Das.
Secular School
Public schools, patterned on boarding schools
for boys in 19th century England, are an
enduring legacy of colonial British rule. Their
graduates have ascended to the topmost rungs
of India's and Pakistan's political, military, and
business leadership.
Nostalgic old boys from Pakistan are now
setting up their own version of Doon on the
outskirts of Lahore. Named the Chandbagh
after the estate on which the original is located,
the school will open for admissions next year.
The moving force behind the Pakistani school
is Doori old boy Lt. General Ghulam Zilani
Khan, a former army general and governor of
Pakistan's Punjab province.
"The greatest thing about Doon School
was that it was secular, with no feelingsof caste
or creed," recalls Miangul Aurangzeb, Class of
1945. He is a prominent Pakistani lawmaker
and member of the Parliament's Public
Accounts Committee. Aurangzeb, considered
to be close to former Premier Nawaz Sharif,
even believes that the Doon old boy ties have
helped maintain a modicum of understanding
between the rulersin New Delhi and Islamabad.
"I have many friends in India. Hatred is
created by politicians and priests, big people
with small minds," he says. S.N. Taiukdar,
Class of 1943 and a former consultant to
India's oil exploration industry, agrees. "They
are very nice to me in Lahore. 1 find it difficult
to understand, how they (Pakistanis) can hate
us," he muses, puffing at his pipe as he watches
a school-alumni cricket match.
Aurangzeb fears that the increasing hold
of the clergy in his country could undermine
religious neutrality in public schools. He
says the government in Islamabad is likely to
insist on religious instruction in the Chandbagh school.
The Pakistan 'old boys' at the celebrations
included the School's first girl pupil, Muin
Vahid. Girls are not admitted unless they are
daughters of school teachers. Vahid and
Aurangzeb were among the 11 Pakistanis who
attended the 60th anniversary celebration in
Dehradun, which was inaugurated by Indian
Finance Minister Manmohan Singh, not an old
boy. However, he had in tow his assistant and
the country's second-most influential economic
policy-maker, Finance Secretary and old boy
Montek Singh Ahluwalia.
HIMAL November/December 1995
Elite, Not Elitist
Doon enforces a spartan regimen. Boys wake
up to 'choti hazri', a cup of milk or tea, at six
in the morning, followed by physical exercise
till seven o'clock. They troop into classrooms
from the exercise field at 7:30a.m. Breakfast is
at 8:50a.m. There is a compulsory one and a
quarter hour of rest after lunch. Compulsory
games in the evening are followed by a bath,
dinner, and an hour and half of study time.
Lights-out is at a quarter of ten.
Boys cannot keep money on their person
and allowances are not supposed to exceed IRs
50 a month. Like the school-supplied regulation clothes, this is meant to ensure equality
among the boys, a large number of whom
come from affluent families. The school charges
an annual fee of IRs 48,000. However, 45
students are on scholarships ranging from IRs
20,000 to IRs 30,000 a year. Another 75 pupils
are entitled to annual bursaries of between IRs
8000 and IRs 15,000.
However, none of this has succeeded in
dispelling Doon's elitist image. School teachers, requesting anonymity, lament the growing waywardness of their wards. There are
tales of rich parents opening accounts for their
children in Dehradun's luxury hotels. Coming
to the institution's defence, one senior
master repeats a well-used tine, "We are trying
to maintain Doon as an elite school, but defi-
nitely not an elitist school."
"They are playing with words," responds
another, more cynical, teacher.
Headmaster Das, a grandson of the
school's founder, has heard the criticism often
and thinks it is unfair. Recently, his office even
prepared an audio-visual presentation to correct the impression of an upscale school. "A
successful institution always acquires the image of elitism, without its wishing to do so," he
explains. "The School was always supported
by the middle class and those who were interested in good education."
In an average year, only two out of every
10 students come from very rich business
families, says Das, and the rest are children of
government and defence personnel and other
professionals.
Old boy Bunker Roy, recipient of the
Magsaysay Award for his community empowerment work among the villagers of Rajasthan,
is not kind to his alma mater. In the school
magazine's diamond jubilee special, Roy
charged Doon with "producing disoriented
celebrities—certainly not men of character, of
compassion, of humility..."
Oh-oh. Are these, then, the ones who will
rule South Asia, if those scholarships are
forthcoming?
M. Uniyal is a Delhi-based journalist.
31
fefitfr
Bearing loads on the back the way his
ancestors did fifteen thousand years ago, the
Nepali porter carries an evolutionary legacy
as well as amodern-day burden. Treating his
conditien-would also cure the socio-economic
ills of Nepal's hill peasantry.
by Kanak ManiJDixit
THREE RAGGED LABOURERS, hailing from
the hills of far-west Nepal, haul a drum full of
truck diesel up from the Lakadi Bazaar depot
in Shimla, On the 15 km trail up from the
Gaurikund bus stop in Garhwal, a Nepali
'kandiwala' carries his 2000th pilgrim up to
Gaumukh, where the Ganga has her source.
He earns ninety rupees for the effort. On the
Lamjura Pass, the high point on the trail to the
Khumbu in east Nepal, a 44-year-old Rai man
is in the middle of a ten-day haul with a load
that is more than twice his own weight.
Every day, tens of thousands of Nepali
porters in the middle hills carry excruciating
loads on their spines, for the sdhu merchants,
for trekkers and mountaineers, and for development agencies. Hundreds of thousands
more heave the basket as part of their daily
household chores, fetching water, firewood
and fodder.
Carrying goods on the back widi the help
of a tumpline (namlo) is the most ancient, and
taxing, of human labours. While the loads
carried by the Nepali porter are the heaviest
anywhere in the world, the feat is doubly
impressive when one considers his diminutive
size and body weight. Himalayan back-loading is also distinctive because it is a continuous, unremitting activity, unlike, for example,
the stevedore's momentary toil.
Watch the Nepali porter, otherwise called
a bhariya or dhakrey, on the trail as he grunts
and sweats his way up a 50 degree switchback.
Spine bent to receive the basket, hands clutching the namlo which distributes the load over
his vertebrae, the muscles of the neck, calves
and thighs tau t—this is how diey carried goods
15,000 years ago, before there were pulleys,
levers and wheels.
Bhariya-work is a holdover from the evolutionary past of humans, a heritage which
every other hill society has discarded for more
modern forms of haulage. In the central Himalayan hills, the Nepali peasant's namlo remains firmly in place as a stark reminder of the
region's economic history and geography.
As botanist Tirtha Bahadur Shrestha points
out, porters have moved millions ■upon millions tons of goods up and down the central
Himalayan mountains over millennia. The
sheer volume of physical pain and mental
suffering that has been expended on these
mountain trails over the centuries is massive.
And yet, this way of life and work has attracted
scant attention from social scientists and development workers in Nepal and elsewhere.
;
33
*"<*.
Hard Livelihood
On August 3-4 in Pa tan, Himal organised what
turned out to be the first-ever meeting on the
subject—"Hard Livelihood: Conference on the
Himalayan Porter". Worldwide, no more than
a handful of researchers have taken an interest
in the subject, and almost all attended to share
notes and express strongly-held views.
Much of what emerged from the conference was new and surprising. Participants
learned why collective bargaining has not
worked for Himalayan porters, why Sherpas
are better on the job in high altitudes, and how
the philanthropic tradition of maintaining pad
and chatxtari rest -stops for porters has died
out. They also learned that modem transportation in the form of Tata trucks, Russian jeeps,
Canadian Twin Otters and, lately, Mil7 helicopters, were engaged in wresting cash income
froni
farhilies
surviving
at
subsistence-through portering. And they
learned that supposedly porter-friendly
suspension bridges were actually taking away
jobs as yaks and mule trains took over.
One paper suggested that backloading
was part of hominid evolution, and that it
probably promoted "upright bipedalism" in
humans—why we walk on two feet, A
neurosurgeon's report held out the possibility
of using the namlo as a physiotherapy aid for
those with degenerated upper spines. Another
researcher was of the view that, despite the
spread of roadways, portering would remain
significant for at least 30 percent of the Nepali
hills beyond 2015.
Most importantly, it became clear that,
economically as well as symbolically, the carrying of other people's loads for an income is
more than anything else a manifestation of hill
poverty and the failure of the Nepali state to be
responsible for its underclass. These mountains would 'develop1 only when the namlo was
finally separated from hundreds of thousands
of Nepali thaplos (foreheads). The eradication
of portering would indicate that the country
was finally making progress.
Riding the Porter's Back
Every hill family, other than the few well-to-do
which are able to hire others to do the lugging,
porters. The daily trudge to the spring or water
spout, is portering, as is carrying a year's
supply of salt from roadhead to homestead,
which may take as long as a week, or carrying
kerosene or corrugated sheets for the hill
market sahu. Trekking is the only business
that offers porters the chance of some form of
34
■ w.J£
'
Forsign
travel
agent
v
*\) Local
Trekking
agent
22
upward mobility—graduating from low
altitude porter to cook to na\ke to sirdar.
The stratospheric reaches of portering are
occupied by the high altitude porters, mostly
Sherpas, who assist sahibs in achieving
summits.
Eackloading, for all its ubiquitousness, is
not visible in the country's economic statistics,
It is a commentary on how Nepali planners
plan that this activity has no profile in national
programmes, other than what benefits percolates down through general 'village development1 programmes. Pitamber Sharma, an
economist with IC1MOD in Kathmandu, agrees
that portering's contribution to the economy
goes unacknowledged, "While portering is
contributing to about a third of household
income of marginal families, it is economically
invisible," he says.
Why does human-b ack p ortaging survive
in Nepal when it has disappeared elsewhere?
In the Indian Himalaya, the need for human
carriers was reduced drastically after the Border Roads Organisation went on a
highway-building frenzy following the 1962
war with China. The high cost of roadway
construction, meanwhile, has prevented Nepal
from developing a large network. As late as
1991, ii had only 8328 km of roads of all
types, which meant a density of 3.5 km per
100 sq km in the hills. Above and beyond the
lack of roads, the precarious humans-only
bridges of the gorge country denied access to
beasts of burden.
The chief reason Nepalis porter is, of
course, that they are poor, across the breaddi
of the country. Take the example of Prem
Bahadur, from Rolpa district of west Nepal,
who says he has been carrying pilgrims to
Kedarnath for 49 seasons. He is a 'kandiwala',
who carries on the back. Speaking to Dehra
Dun-based researcher Ramamurthy Sreedhar,
Prem Bahadur said he had taken up portering
to supplement his family's income as the fields
did not provide enough. He said: "1 am cursed
to cany human beings. I have carried thousands to the house of god, but bhagwan still
will not see my plight."
Nearly all the kandiwalas Sreedhar encountered in the Garhwal dhams (pilgrim destinations) were from the poor western hills of
Nepal. On average, a porter ferries 700
well-fed pilgrims for darshan every season,
earning about IRs 7000. What he saves after
expenses is his 'profit',
"Because a porter by definition carries
someone else's burden, portering has remained symbolic of an inherently exploitative
NwmbertDec&ntxr 1995 HIMAL
a
arrangement," says Pitamber Sharma. "The
true rural proletariat of Nepal is made up of
those who porter for others."
Bishnu Bhandari of the International
World Conservation Union (1UCN), who this
spring conducted a day-long workshop of
bhariyas in north Gorkha, found that even the
food they would save at home by joining a
trekking group was part of the economic calculation of the peasants. Said one porter, "If 1
go carrying loads, at least 1 am eating as 1 go."
According to environmental activist Anil
Chitrakar, "Portering is one of the few professions in the world where the more experienced you are, that is, the older you get, the
less is the pay. Porters have neither insurance
nor any political leverage. There is no pension
scheme. They are on their own."
t
u
Lhakpa Norbu Sherpa, a Khumbu
ecolo-gist, calculated the income of porters
after the helicopters sent poner incomes
crashing in the Jin to Namche route. He
found that the average daily income of the
porter was NRs 155, out of which he spends
NRs 74 daily on subsistence. "It is no longer
worth the pain, but they still continue to
porter," says Sherpa.
One community which has historically
been relegated to the portering life is the
Tamang, living in the hills that surround
Kathmandu Valley. Since ancient times, these
people have been maintained as an exploited,
unskilled underclass for use by Kathmandu's
cultured urban classes. Ben Campbell, an anthropologist from the University of Manchester noted, "The strategic role of Tamang communities in central Nepal was as an underde-
Namlo for Spondylosis
UpendraDevkota.Kathmandu-basedneurosurgeon,
presented preliminary results of a study on the
upper (cervical) spine of the male Nepali porter,
stating that he had found significantly less degeneration than expected, Spondylosis is the wear and tear
of the cervical spine that comes with age, and it
would seem that a porter's neck would be more
susceptible than others'. "There was reason to expect
that there would be accelerated degeneration,
but these preliminary results indicate otherwise,"
says Dr. Devkota, who
expects to present conclusive findings after further research. "The
porters seem to have significantly better necks
compared to sedentary
populations."
In the age group 40-49,
a
spondylosis, whereas 25
percent would have been
normal according to medical literature. "This tends
to suggest that male Nepali porters in their 40s
have significantly less spinal degeneration compared to their Western controls." If his preliminary
findings are confirmed, then the namlo tumpline
should be the suggested physiotherapy aid for
spondylosis patients.
veloped reserve of labour power at the service
of the central elites. Their marginal niche
and subsistence economy were treated
with neglect."
Even though the trekking industry now
provi des work to many Tamangs, the Tamangs
do not get rich from trekking, said Campbell.
"Many of the villagers who go 'to carry Foreigners' loads' come back with little to show for
their work, at most a few hundred rupees,
some new clothes, or some stainless steel
plates. The details may have changed but the
Tamangs are still carrying loads to make profits for the Kathmandu elite."
What, No Union?
If the porters are at the bottom of the labour
ladder and make up a rural proletariat, why
IH M
htHtHHHIIHHillHIIIIIIIIIIIIillllHIIIIIIHMHIIIIIUIimilllHimiillllHIIIIIIIIIIIIIIUIIlJllllJ
Stress and Recovery on the Trail
Heart-rate monitoring of commercial porters conducted in August 1995
demonstrated the importance of the tokma to the technique of carrying very
heavy loads over long distances. The tokma is the sturdy T-shaped walking
stick used by commercial porters in eastern Nepal to provide temporary
support under the doko basket during frequent rest stops along the trail.
The heart rate plot shown here, recorded at 5-second intervals, presents a
typical heart rate pattern for a commercial porter walking uphill. In this
case, the poner is a 33-year-old Magar walking up the Kenje hill carrying
[he 4Q
a 87-kg load (169 percent of body weight). While walking uphill, this
porter stops every 135 seconds, on average, and rests for 60 seconds,
placing his tokma under his doko and removing the namlo from his
forehead as he rests. During the brief rest stop, the heart rate decreases
quickly by 30 to 50 beats per minute, then increases again as soon as the
porter resumes walking. After walking for half an hour, the porter sets his
load on a chautara (rest platform) along the trail and relaxes for 10-12
minutes, during which times his heart rate drops to the initial level
recorded during the interview session in Kenje. This technique of intermittent stress and recovery enables the porter to pace his exertions throughout
the 10-day journey from Jiri to Namche.
- Nancy Mahille
HIMAL November/December
1995
35
don't they organise? Theseare the people who,
after all, literally earn by the sweat of their
brows. And yet, several factors conspire
to ensure that Nepal's porters have no
collective voice.
Overwhelmingly, the porters of Nepal are
uneducated and unrepresented. Because the
workforce greatly exceeds demand, they have
little or no bargaining power. They are divided
among themselves by region, ethnicity and
caste. Furthermore, there is no 'factory floor'
where porters can gather, which facilitates
organisation. By its nature, portering is a solitary rather than collective assignment.
The advent of democracy in 1990 did see
some scattered work stoppages called by the
Trekking Workers' Association of Nepal, but
organising efforts quickly fizzled out. The
Rolwaling region and some villages elsewhere
in the High Himalaya do guard their trails to
ensure high rates from trekking groups, but
this has not been feasible elsewhere in Nepal.
Even in Baltistan in the Northern Areas of
Pakistan, where self-awareness of porters is
much better articulated than in Nepal (and
where pay scales are about ten times higher),
collective bargaining is absent. According to
Kenneth MacDonalcl, a University of Toronto
researcher, "There are no unions or association of porters among the Balti, as collective
identity stems from the village and kinships
rather than from the occupation."
While trekking might see some collective
bargaining before long, this is not even a
remote possibility in commercial portering,
which involves the heaviest loads and many
times the number of porters engaged No
government agency or NGO has yet stepped
forward as an advocate for the inhumanely
exploited commercial porter.
From Dehydration to Hypothermia
The myth is that only plainsmen and tourists
get acute mountain sickness. Not true, says Dr.
Buddha Basnet, Medical Director of the Himalayan Rescue Association (HRA). Dr. Basnet
says midhill porters venturing up the high
valleys are equally susceptible. "The worst
cases of altitude sickness—full blown pulmonary or cerebral edema-brought down to
HRA's posts tend to be trekking staff."
By and large, hill porters are unprepared
for die demands of high altitude travel. Encountering unique terrain of the highhimals,
they become disoriented and often suffer psychological stress. Symptoms of AMS are dis-
missed as bohsi lagyo, witch's curse. Untreated
bruises, lacerations and abrasions that are
part and parcel of load-carrying lead to frequent infections. Porters suffer from hypothermia, caused by exposure to the elements
without warm clothing, while they are also
victimised by dehydration from drinking contaminated stream water and eating
unhygienically on the trail.
"Even at high altitude, trekking is a 'hot
weather activity1 Heat is as much a problem as
cold, and it is important to get the message
across to porters that they must drink plenty of
fluid replacement," says Dr. John Dickenson,
a pioneer of trekking medicine. There are
places where the porter must be encouraged to
carry a water canteen, even if this means
adding to his load.
According to studies cited by Dr. Basnet,
high himalayan populations such as Sherpas
seem to enjoy physiological advantages over
their midhill counterparts. As part of evolutionary adaptation, for example, Sherpas seem
to have higher oxygen levels in their blood
stream because they breathe ('ventilate') more.
Thigh muscle biopsies of Bhotiya populations
show that they have a higher
capillaries-to-fiber ratio than hill people. They
also have less
On Balti Notoriety
Women as Porters
The words used to typify the Balti porter
in travel, exploration and mountaineering literature include garrulous, belligerent, greedy, unreliable and cowardly.
Re gardless of the individu al exp eriences
that generate this image, the power system that sustains and extends it has
produced a stereotype of Balti porters as
unreliable.
1 would suggest that acts diat have
led people to label Balti people as unreliable, cowardly and so on, are actually
acts of resistance carried out in an effort
to exercise a degree of self-determination and retain an element of dignity in
a task that can be most degrading. What
has been transmitted among travellers
as a bad reputation is actually a racist
misinterpretation of the actions of a
subordinate group involved in continuous resistance against domination and
the appropriation of their labour.
Porteringas a money-earning proposition presents
to women an escape from the drudgery of their
village existence, their continuous unpaid
labour, and their poverty. These apparent
gains—hard cash, freedom, exposure and new
confidence—are what portering can give them.
And in reality, they have no other option, as no
employment comes their way. Under these
circumstances, they should be encouraged,
especially since they have proved themselves
capable of the labour required. For women in the
occupation, therefore, portering is an
employment opportunity which they do not want
jeopardised by well-meaning activists. Any
action on their behalf must be taken only with
careful forethought and sensitivity. However hard
the life of women porters may be, it is one that
they have chosen because they had no other
alternative. But that does not mean that we
should stop after telling the story...
- Dibya Gurung and Tsering Tenpa
- Ken MacDonald
mm
36
November/December 1995 HIMAL
pulmonary artery constriction at high altitude
than hill porters, who are therefore more prone
to waterlogged lungs (pulmonary edema).
When a dhakrey stops his heaving and
halts to catch his breath, is he following a
cardio-vascular dictate or is he stopping to
relieve pain? This is a question that researchers
have yet to study, but the porter has other
things on his mind... When University of
Colorado scholar Nancy Malville asked a
Rai porter on the Jiri trail, "Where does it
hurt most?", the quick reply was: "At the
Lamjura Pass!"
Load and Body Mass
East African women typically carry loads
equivalent to about 70 percent of their body
mass (about 40 kg), and the heaviest baggage
carried elsewhere using a tumpline seem to
have been by the Canadian voyageurs, who
transported heavy loads for short distances
while portaging their canoes and goods from
one lake to another. The average load carried
by the voyageur, whose days are long past,
was 80 kg.
Only in Nepal does the porter's toil continue. Unlike other load carriers, and even
Olympic weight-lifters, the bhariya's exertion
is sustained over days on end. The porter trail
studied by Nancy Malville, which leads from
the Jiri roadhead eastward to Narnche, takes
ten days of continuous carriage For a fully
laden dhakrey. He returns in four days, to
repeat the cycle. His total elevation gain over
the route is 21,000 ft and total loss 16,500 ft.
Nancy Malville, assisted by her astronomer husband Kim, focussed her inquiry on the
relationship between the porter's body mass
and his load. She found that youngest porters
(11-15 years) carried an equivalent of 135
percent of their body mass, and men in their
sixties were still hauling goods of up to 60 kg,
or 116 percent of their body mass.
Males in their late 20s carried the heaviest
loadsT83kg(182 lbs), in relation to their own
size, equivalent to 159 percent of body mass.
The heaviest load encountered was 108 kg
(238 lbs), carried by a 44-year-old Rai trader,
Bhim Bahadur Sunwar, who stood 146 cm tall
(4'9") and weighed a mere 47 kg (104 lbs).
Bhim Bahadur was carrying 228 percent of his
own body mass.
Malville also reported that, overall, the
heaviest loads (an average 160 percent of body
weight) are carried by dokay sakus,
merchant-porters who seek profit for
themselves and hence have the strongest
motivation, Porters
HIMAL November/December 1995
Dead Porters don't Protest
The freak storm that hit the Nepal Himalaya
from 9th to 10th earlier November saw
prompt helicopter evacuation on an unprecedented scale coordinated by a government-tourism industry task force. It
was a well-re ported, commendable job.
However, while reports are sketchy, it
seems clear that porters, forming the lowest strata of trie trekking trade, were neglected in the rescue operation.
Altogedier 549 people were airlifted
out of the mountains, of which 250 were
foreigners and 299 Nepalis. It is a ratio of
almost one-to-one, which itself indicates
that something is amiss. On average, the
client-to-porter ratio for organised treks in
the high Himalaya is 1:4, which means
that many more porters must have been
left stranded or dead on the mountain than
were airlifted out.
The fact that the number of Nepalis
reported dead is almost twice that of foreigners is similarly illuminating. The
government's figure on whose bodies have
been found is 22 foreigners and 42 Nepalis.
The Trekking Workers' Association of
Nepal (TWAN) claims that many more
Nepalis have died.
While the foreigners are normally
well-equipped for even tualities up on the
mountain, Nepali porters do their jobs
with the hope that the weather will stay
friendly while going over the pass. Only a
handful of the more expensive trekking
agencies are known to provide porters
with the minimum required clothing and
gear.
Inadequate clothing and equipment
is the main reason so many Nepalis succumbed to the killer storm, says Padam
Singh Ghate of Mandala Trekking. At one
point, there were said to be fifty porters
suffering from snow blindness registered
at the Kunde Hostpital above Namche
Bazaar.
TWAN officers are indignant that their
group was kept out of the task force, and
that they were unable to board helicopters
to ensure that porters were not. neglected
by the rescue effort. They also claim that
there was discrimination in identifying
and bringing back the dead.
This information is mostly anecdotal,
but rings true Dead bodies of foreigners
were put into wooden boxes, while Nepalis
were slipped into sacks. Initially, only the
bodies of foreigners were brought to
Kathdmandu while the Nepali dead were
said to have been dumped into rivers. "I've
heard similar reports," says Ang Gyaltsen
Sherpa, Trekking Director for Trans-Himalayan Tours, a group diat lost 13 Japanese tourists and 10 Nepali staff in the
disaster. "Most probably it would be Nepali
porters whose bodies are being thrown
away."
In die Kanchenjunga region, it is said,
a helicopter landed and took off without
taking in anyone, with the pilot saying,
"There are only Nepalis here," Elsewhere,
the going rate for helicopter evacuation
was said to be US$400 for the eight minute
[light from Gokyo to Pangboche in
Khumbu, and US$200 equivalent for
Nepalis.
The government has stopped counting bodies, and the trekking industry is
almost back to business as usual. No one
knows how many bodies of Nepali midhill
porters strew the mountain passes, as most
trekking agencies find it convenient not to
report their dead. All across the middle
hills, however, there will be men (and
some women) who will never return to the
homestead.
No one will be counting, either, when
the spring thaw most likely reveals bodies
all across the high passes of Nepal.
-Ramyata Limbu
Helicopter an rescue mission aver Gakya.
37
hired by shopkeepers were routinely carrying
145 percent, while thosedoing'self-portering',
i.e. carrying goads for their own households,
heaved the equivalent o f their own body mass.
"The normal value for non-commercial load
carrying in rural Nepal seems to be 80 percent
of body mass," says Nancy Malville.
Clearly, the Nepali porter would win the
gold in any Olympic competition if the criterion were load-to-body mass and endurance.
While beefy weight-lifters can hoist carry
heavier weights, they do not carry twice their
own body mass. As Kim Malville says, "It is
important to note that weight-lifters lift, and
that, too, momentarily, but they do not
transport!"
Rotors vs. Porters
The political and economic collapse of the
Soviet Union has had a direct and reverberating impact on Nepali porters, for it made
helicopters availabile to the Third World at
cheap prices.
Over the last two years, Russian-made
Kazan Mil7 helicopters, with the ability to lift
up to four tons from a runway and three tons
vertically, have devastated the portering market of the eastern Nepal hills. As the thudding
rotors ferry food grains, construction goods
and development material to far-flung outposts, whole villages lose their only source of
cash income down below.
Technology and the market when they
work together become an unbeatable combination, and perhaps going back may indeed be
retrograde. However, in Nepal there has not
even been the semblance of a debate as the
copters wrest away livelihoods of thousands.
The loud members of the Nepali Sansad's
government and opposition benches have not
found the need to address this issue, although
it is subject for both the socialists of the Nepali
Congress and the communists of the United
Marxist Leninists.
What is the solution to this gruelling
occupation, if it is not to be helicopters? The
one cautionary note that Dibya Gurung and
TseringTenpa made in theirpaper on "Women
as Porters" is that there should be no misplaced charity. Just because porters issues are
being highlighted does not mean that a simplistic solution be sought to abolish portering
by fiat. The job is one that women and men
have taken up because of economic necessity,
they say, and the supposedly demeaning act of
"carrying another's load" is academic as far as
J
the porters are concerned. The focus, instead,
should be to search for the interest of the
porter—female, male and child—while generally working to develop the socio-economic
status of the hinterland hill population.
There is no interim panacea to genuine
development of the country taken as a whole,
with the hills near and far taken along with
prosperous Kathmandu Valley and the tarai.
The moment the peasant has work that provides an alternate source of income, he will
stop portering. Says Anil Chitrakar, "Portering
is the starkest symbol of failed development
after four decades of trying. Only when we
have succeeded in removing the namlo from
the thaplo, can we sit back satisfied that bikas
has arrived in Nepal."
Until that time comes, we can, at the
very least, notice the porter's burden the next
time we pass him on the trail. Says Pitarnber
Sharma, "The sweat the porter expends is in
the hope for a better tomorrow for his progeny. For his efforts, the Nepali porter is a hero.
He deserves the respect that is his due."
k
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Hard Livelihood: Conference on Himalayan Portering.
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Say When,
Burma
t
u
IF YOU WANT TO SEE Calcutta as it was in
the 1950s, visit Rangoon. With its crumbling
Victorian buildings and leafy boulevards,
Rangoon feels like a backwater, and in many
ways it is. Burma's post-colonial history has
not evolved as has happened elsewhere in the
South Asian subcontinent; the architecture
and politics are frozen in time.
Burmese democracy was barely 14 years
old when it died in 1962. That year, Prime
Minister U Nu, friend and confidante of assassinated freedom fighter AungSan, was toppled
by General Ne Win in a coup. Ne Win plunged
Burma into isolation and stagnation: one of
the richest and most-promising regions of the
British empire at independence virtually disappeared from the political and economic
map. Ne Win's "Burmese way to socialism"
brought the country to its knees.
8-8-88
Burmese democrats seem confident that their day is coming,
but the Rangoon junta is busy establishing military and
economic alliances. Meanwhile, returned Indian exiles are
back in business.
by Satya Si\araman
40
Opposition to Ne Win's Burmese Socialist
Programme Party climaxed in August 8,1988
(the date 8-8-88 has significance among diehard numerologists in the Burmese junta).
The generals defused the crisis by shuffling the
deck: Ne Win slid out of view while lurking
behind the throne as a kingmaker.
SLORC (the State Law and Order Restoration Council, as the junta has called itself since
the 1988 student uprising), conducted elections in 1990. The National League for Democracy led by Aung Sang's daughter Aung
San Suu Kyi won 80 percent of the parliamentary seats. But the junta refused to relinquish
power, and let Aung San Suu Kyi languish
under house arrest for five years until setting
her free in August this year.
The release of the Nobel Peace Prize
winner was a deft public relations move on the
part of SLORC, which is wooing East Asian
investors in a big way. Burmese generals today
like to point out that their role model is the
Indonesian formula of military involvement
in politics. And they tell disapproving Westerners who harp on human rights: If it is okay
for Indonesia, why isn't it all right for Burma?
In any event, the economic future today
looks less bleak than it did five years ago, or
even last year. The country is eagerly awaiting
membership in the Association of Southeast
Asian Nations (ASEAN) in which it already has
observer status, and it has thrown open its
doors to trade and investments from Thailand, Singapore, Malaysia and Indonesia. Shops
are beginning to fill up with imported goods,
and sleek glass-and-concrete buildings are
Alorember/Decemter 1995 HIMAL
starting to alter the city's musty charm, Moreover, with Suu Kyi's release, there is at least
a glimmer of hope of the restoration of
long-lost freedoms.
But, while hope glimmers on the horizon,
the continuing rule by fossilised political figures means that things remain uncertain—
enough to provide full employment to the
country's palm readers, numerologists and
astrologers. And uncertain enough to make a
magazine that specialises in astrology and black
magic the most widely read (with weekly sales
of 50,000) in the nation. It is not only ordinary
people in Burma who are superstitious. Ne
Win himself believes in numbers and nine is
his favourite. After the 1988 pro-democracy
uprising, Ne Win chose 18 September as the
date to reconstitute the junta: the logic was
that this was the ninth month and one plus
eight was nine... Most state functions still
begin at 0909 a.m. sharp.
Then there was the incident involving the
'miraculous' appearance of an idol of the goddess 'Pollamma' in a military base in Rangoon
a few years ago, Soldiers who dug out the
idol and sent it off to a local South Indian
temple were said to have vomited blood, then
died. There seems to be nothing in Burmese
military training on how to deal with vengeful
Indian goddesses.
Burma's cultural substrate has a strong
Hindu influence, and ■ many of the deities
worshipped by the Burmese originate in the
Hindu pantheon, including Shiva, Vishnu and
Brahma. Belief in these deities dates back a
thousand years, when much of the country
was controlled by the Takings, a tribe with
close cultural Sinks to the Hindu Khmer kingdoms. Like the Thais, today most Burmese are
Theravada Buddhists, but continue to worship a large number of lesser Hindu deities.
Historical Links
Burma's cultural and religious heritage reflects
the powerful influence of the Subcontinent
that lies to the west, which came in two
waves—first the Hindu wave, then the Buddhist. But if, in the distant past, the Burmese
attitude toward the culture of India was one of
respect and reverence, the attitude of the Burmese people towards Indians has often been
that of outright hostility.
During the Anglo-Burma wars of the
mid-19th century, the British used Sikhs
and Gurkhas to help subdue the Burmese, so
that their neighbours to the west were cast
not as friends but as enemies. Later, early
migrations
HIMAL ItivemberlDecmber 1995
of Indian 'coolies' during the British days
helped to forge a stereotype of the Indian as
dirty and uncouth. In the early years of this
century, it was the South Indian Chettiars who
were particularly loathed.
When the international price of rice collapsed in the 1930s, the Chettiars controlled
more than half of all arable land in the country.
In the 1930's, by when roughly a million
Indians had settled in the country, anti-Indian
pogroms broke out, and, as a result, many
Indians returned to their homeland. At the
beginning of the next decade, many more—an
estimated 400,000—fled ahead of the Japanese invasion, a quarter of them perishing
during their trek to India.
Before the outbreak of the war, South
Asians formed the maj ority of Rangoon's population. A. Duriaswamy, a Tamil business man
who was bom and grew up in a village just
outside of Rangoon, recalls, "In those days,
Hindustani was spoken all over the city."
There was even a village of 100,000 fanners
from Bihar who had settled down in Ziyawad,
200 km north of Rangoon, he adds,
When the military j unta came to power in
1962, it began to systematically nationalise all
wealthy businesses, a measure that was intended to drive the Indians out of the country.
Those who fled left their property in the care
of relatives and friends who stayed on.
Money
ity of the Burmese. Early migrants were rich
traders with feudal backgrounds who lived'off
the Burmese, but treated the locals as untouchables. Indian businessmen repatriated
most of their profits, and rarely ploughed their
profits back into the local economy.
The Goenkas' interest in Burma was rekindled because of SLORC's openness to outside investors. One of the Goenka brothers has
now obtained Burmese citizenship, enabling
the family to buy property and enter businesses forbidden to foreign citizens.
"As of now there are not more than 20
business families that have returned but the
numbers are growing rapidly," says Sharma,
who was one of the few Indians who never left
Burma. He believes the country has the potential of being Southeast Asia's richest.
As his plane came in to land at Rangoon a year
ago, gliding over the familiar river-front settlements and the golden pagoda, S.P. Goenka
remembers the hard lump that grew in his
throat. His ancestors first came to Burma in
1862, and Red to India two decades ago. He
was among many Indians whose businesses
were nationalised in the 1960s, and-who were
returning to make a new start. Even though
very few of those who returned have managed
to recover their property, they are not complaining—Burma is today the land of opportunity. There is new money to be made even if
old money has been lost.
"We are not here to reclaim our property
but to start our business afresh," says
Madhusudhan Kansara, whose family also fled
to India in the 1960s. Kansara says anti-Indian
feelings have dissipated and many government officials privately admit that the
nationalisation policy was a mistake.
S.S. Sharma of the trading company
Yamona International, maintains that Indians
themselves are partly to blame for the animos-
Blind Emperor
The junta's get-tough policy back in the 1960s
not only hit Indian economic interests; it also
affected South Asian cultural life. Urdu has a
special significance in Rangoon because the
city was the final resting place of India's last
Moghul emperor andpoet, Bahadur ShahZafar.
The blind emperor, who lived in abject poverty inside the ramparts of the Red Fort in New
Delhi, was punished for his role in supporting
the 1857 military rebellion against the British.
First banished to Kidderpore near Calcutta,
the emperor was finally brought to Rangoon
where he died in 1862.
Says Nana Bawa, general secretary of the
Bazm-e-Gulshan-e-Urdu in Rangoon: "Sometimes when we read the poetry of Bahadur
Shah Zafar in his last days we cannot distinguish whether the subject was colonial oppression in India or the situation of ordinary
Burmese People."
Urdu publications have been shut down
along with other private media, even though
41
there are thousands of Burmese who still
speak and write Urdu. Every year, Bahadur
Shah Zafar's anniversary is marked at his
tomb, which has become a meeting place for
Burmese of South Asian descent over the past
century. Bahadur Shah's famous Urdu couplet
resonates for those who remember the days of
hostility:
Do gaz zomin bhi
aaj na mili ku-e-yaar mein.
(1 didn't even get two yards of earth in my
beloved homeland to be buried in.)
The latest is that Rangoon city authorities plan
to take over the tomb site, which is located in
prime real estate. Bahadur Shah would be
moved, once again.
President Suu Kyi
Nepali couple in semi-Burmese attire, c. i960.
The settlement of Burma by Nepali-speakers was, firstly, an extension of the British colonial
policy of opening up the Indian Northeast with peasantry from the central Himalaya. It was
also a result of the homesteading by families of Gurkha soldiers. By the early 1940s, there were
a sizeable number of farmers and business families in Burma of Nepali origin, and interestingly, a large number of gwalas, or milk suppliers.
The silent exodus of Nepalis from Burma occurred in two waves, during World War II
as they fled the Japanese advance, and in the 1960s following Ne Win's bhumiputra policies.
There was no count kept of the numbers, but the 'Burmeli' arrived back in time to settle
Nepal's tarai lands that were being freed of malaria.
Unlike the case with the Lhotshampa of Bhutan, who constitute the next big refugee
influx into Nepal, there was no United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees to aid and
protect the Burmeh, They had to make do the best they could, and many of them did very well
in a Nepal that was just opening up to the outside world. Having been exposed to modern
colonial times in Burma, and many of them having had business experience, many Burmelis
started successful careers in Nepal. For their small numbers, they have been prominent in
government service, in the Nepali police, and as entrepreneurs.
While a significant number of Burmese Nepatis have also migrated to neighbouring
Thailand, enough remain behind to benefit from Burmese democracy, when it arrives.
42
On a geopolitical plane, the Burmese junta has
cosied up to the Chinese, in whom they find
an ideological ally, in confronting Western
criticism of human rights and democracy.
New road and air links between northern
Burma and China have connected the two
economies. The Chinese have supplied some
US$ 1.2 billion worth of arms to the junta to
fight ethnic insurgents, and Rangoon is said
to have given the Chinese navy access to
strategic listening posts in the Bay of Bengal
near the Andamans.
India, on the other hand, came out openly
in support of the democracy movement and of
Aung San Suu Kyi, selecting her as the recipient of the Nehru Peace Award in 1995. But
New Delhi's pro-democracy stance took an
about turn with a secretive trip to Rangoon
two years ago by then Indian Foreign Secretary J.N. Dixit. On a state visit to Rangoon
earlier this year, Indian Commerce Minister P.
Chidambaram even cancelled a scheduled
wreath-laying ceremony at the tomb of U Nu,
who had been a close friend of Jawaharlal
Nehru's, for fear of angering SLORC. To
pro-democracy activists, the incident
confirmed New Delhi's willingness to
abandon both its old friends and its
principles for short-term gain. They say it is
only a question of time before Suu Kyi leads
a democratic Burma, at which point India's
betrayal will come to haunt it.
Despite Suu Kyi's release and her confidence in ultimate triumph, Burmese dissidents in exile in India and Thailand have
watched in dismay as SLORC gains increased
November/December 1995 HIMAL
t
u
Burma or Myahinar?
When, a country' decides to change its name,: the
international acceptability, and as Asian
neighbours revise their views and suggest that
the junta can be reformed. Though Suu Kyi
has sounded conciliatory in her calls for dialogue with the junta, she says: "People have to
accept we are nowhere near democracy yet. 1
have been released, that's all... the situation
has not changed."
Like Suu Kyi, who was a student in New
Delhi while her mother was posted there as
ambassador, hundreds of young Burmese dissidents are studying in India. They are unwilling to be identified since the military back
home has visited their families and knows
exactly who is where. But the students are
bitter over how things have turned out.
"We left our country to end the domination of the military... we cannot go along with
that level of reconciliation. We cannot forget
how ruthless the military leaders were. There
has to be a trial of top generals, the military has
to go back to the barracks. These are matters
on which we cannot compromise," says
one student activist (requesting anonymity)
who has lived in New Delhi for more than
five years.
Back home, Suu Kyi's cautious moves
after her release reflect the dichotomy within
the dissident movement—between those who
want to forge a political alliance and others
who demand a complete withdrawal of the
military from politics.
According to the older generation of political activists, such as NLD candidate Tin
Swe, the student exiles and dissidents in India,
Thailand, and elsewhere will have to accept
reality and follow Suu Kyi's call for dialogue
and national reconciliation.
Tin Swe was reelected general secretary of
the NLD in October, but the junta-run Election
Commission has declined to recognise it. She
is now a minister in the Burmese
govemment-in-exile. In New Delhi, Tin Swe
told Himal: "From the beginning we
wanted to fight SLORC. But now our
political wisdom indicates that in Burma's
politics, armed struggle is no more."
U Nu's daughter Than Than Nu, also in
New Delhi, says Suu Kyi is determined to carry
on the dialogue she started with General Than
Shwe and intelligence chief Gen Khin Nyunt
because she believes reconciliation rather than
recrimination is the best way to resolve the
political
stalemate.
f
r
S. Sivaraman is a Bangkok-based journalist. With repcms
from Samir Pal in New Delhi.
rest of the/world^usually goes, along;■;!
.: Mpper:Volta said henceforth it wanted to beealled Burkina Faso.and so Burkina Faso it :
v.: ?iyas. Cambodia switched mKarripucheaandbacfc to Gambqdia;, and the;world obediently;:
:: switched with it; ;
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■ Yetwhenthe military junta to Burma decided to go.Myanmar in:l989.; the world was■:;
"divided: Except for the: Umted Nations,.multinational companies that value their;!
Hi;: business links !with;Ratigopn{now Yangbn) and the Indian press, justabputeveryqne else ;■
iffibepf on calling Biirma Burma!: ■ : ; . .
.
:
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■■ '■■:, :.::■; True,theBatniesepeopfehavecalled theircouMryMyanmarmthepast. European1;!
; colbrriserscaUeditBuraiaorBinna,anditspeopleBunnahorBinnan^Inthepi^JolonialP
P ■ i! days, what is nowBurma used to be made up of four rival kingdoms: the Mon in the ;
: ^southeast, thenorthern ShaPi the central Myarunararid trie, eastern Arakan. (Arakan.is
:
/ : : ■■■. \ ::
: ■ thename given by British India .to Rakhaitig.)
: ..
:;: ;:::.
. By 1557, theShanand theMonbad beeh subdued by
:
ariexpansionistdyriastybased; :;: in Shwebp near Mahdaiay.: The Arakan fell in 1784, and tte
occupation of Manipur and::; : !i Incursionsltitp Assam brought (he kings into direct conflict
with British India. The Moris, y ;::; Arakans and other minorities sided with the British in the
three Anglo-Burmese wars, : .from: 1825.to 1842, at the end of which the British had
conquered a big chunk of Burma.. ;:: : ; : ;
The British rewarded the minorities for their
support, which the.independehce-■;: ::minde:d Burmans considered part of the colonisers:
divide-and-rule policy, Atjnd^pen- '-< ■:;-idenee, the 1Q47 constitution gave the country its
official narne: The: Unipriof Burma,!;; s:V while ;the minorities made it. clear.they
would,have preferred 'federation' teistead : ; : ! o f ' u n i o n 1 . : ' . ; •
'
. ; / : : ;
.■:.
. ::': / . " . : . ;:-'. ■. ■
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; ^Tensions between; Rangoon and the. mmojines remained. Unresolved after indepen -:
i : dence,:and the civil War that 1 broke:out in i948corj!:inues to this day throughput the; :
:
: ■ ■ ... ' : ■ ■
. [ ; ' ' . ■ ..
:: ^eastern border regions.
:.
; H::: .Todays the rniftoritiesi feel more comfortable witli'Burma! than with. 'Myannjar' since i!
: ; : they consideredMyartmars their equal partners in the Union of Burma, They suspect::
I-; 1 :SLOEC is trying^b ignore the existencepi Burma'scmltural diversity. Changing the name:"
■ : ^tpMy.anmar is seen to be part ofthatattempt. ...
■ ■ .. . ' ■ ■ ■ ' ;
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:
■:■&:■ Onthebtherharid,:tftechangesfrpmRangobntpYarigbn:,MoulmeiritoMawlamyine,:!
:
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: ■'. i and: the irrawady-to Ayeyarwady, areless problematic arid represent the indigenous::
[■ phonetics of anglicised names, much, in thesame way Bombay is going back to Mumbai.:
- Hla Phay in Bangkok1^
: : ; :
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HIMAL Norember/Decemfaer
1995
--
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43
A b s t r a c t s
Forests, People & Profit
by N.C. Saxena
Natraj Publishers, Dehra Dun, 1995 ISBN
81-85019-51-7, IRs. 295 Keeping in mind the
successive forest policies of the Indian
Government and the major role such policies
play in Forest resources, a workshop on
'Policy and Implementation Issues in Forestry'
was organised by the Lai Bahadur Shastri
Academy of Administration in Mussorie in
1994. This book is the outcome of that
workshop. It covers such topics as deforestation, rural poverty, unemployment, tribal unrest, equity issues, and policy implementation.
Karakorum Himalaya
Sourcebook for a Protected Area
by Nigel J.R, Allan 1UCN,
Pakistan, 1995 ISBN
969-8141-13-8
lnAUan's update of the entry on the Karakorum
for Encyclopedia Britannica, a major portion of
his literature references were omitted while
the list he was keeping continued to grow. The
University of California geographer has made
use of it in the form of this sourcebook, in the
hope that it will be "an aid to formulating how
the Karakorum Himalaya might emerge under
the category of being a 'Protected Area'" and
also "bring to the readers's attention the rich
literature that exists on the Karakorum
Himalaya and the adjacent territory." Allan's
list includes hundreds of titles and consists of
five chapters on history, description and inventory, photographic and cartographic documentation, public awareness and related bibliographic materials.
Mountains at Risk: Current
Issues in Environmental Studies
by Nigel J.R Allan, editor Manohar
Publishers and Distributors, New Delhi,
1995
1SBN 81-7304-133-4, IRs. 450 This
compilation is a summary of the contemporary knowledge and debates about mountain environments which was prepared as a
reference for the 1992 Rio Summit. The contributing mountain experts look into how
ecological risk in the highlands is caused by
humans through governmental policies and
multi-national agencies, among others. They
seek to bring about a shiftin the interpretation
of the mountain environment from the
'geoecology paradigm' that has much governed it for decades. The book does not claim
to be an exhaustive collection of material on
44
the subject nor has it included all the mountains of the world, but rather simply takes
another look at all the information that has
been generated in the past decade,
Bangladesh: Reflections on the
Water
by James J. Novak
The University Press Limited, Dhaka, 1994
ISBN 984-05-1251 X, Taka 200 Novak, a
columnist and reporter, was Resident
Representative o f The Asia Founda tion in
Bangladesh from 1982 to 1985. In this book,
he presents his personal overview of Bangladesh
and its people. He examines the economy, the
importance of seasonal fluctuation in the
lifestyle and psychology of the people, geography, history, music, art, poetry, ways of thinking, and political life. He also offers his own
interpretation of the Bangladesh independence
movement and the nationalism that spawned
it, and the effect this nationalism has had on
every aspect of Bangladeshi life.
Ecological Carnage
in the Himalaya
Vir 5ingh et al, editors
International Book Distributors, Dehra Dun,
1995
ISBN 81-7089-226-0
The book, in 15 chapters, attempts to present
the scenario of ecological change in the
Himalaya with suggestions to avert and reverse the process. The contributors include
Sunderlal Bahuguna of the Tehri Dam protest
fame. The chapters deal with subjects like the
seismic hazard at Tehri, the Chipko movement, genetic erosion, social forestry and
aquatic resources of the north-western
Himalaya, and so on.
The Splendour of Himalayan Art
and Culture
by Ashok Jeraih
Indus Publishing Company, New Delhi, 1995
ISBN 81-7387-034-9, IRs. 350 This work is
the fourth in a sequence of books by the
author on the art and culture of the people of
the Himalayan region. It covers the art,
architecture and cultural aspects of the
Himachal Pradesh areas of the Dhauladhar
ranges, Kangra, Palampur, Baijnath, Mandi,
Kullu, Manali, Lahaul and Spiti, Kinnaur and
the upper region around Shimla. References
are also made to the Pahari art of miniature
paintings of Basohh, J ammu, M anke t and other
erstwhile kingdoms.
Widening Perspectives on
Biodiversity
AnatoleF. Krattiger, Jeffrey A. McNeely, editors
Natraj Publishers, Dehra Dun, 1994 ISBN
81-85019-46-0, IRs. 395 A reviewer has
written, "This book expands the information
base on which we ground our conservation
response. It is a timely contribution to
scientific, technical and socio-economic
endeavours aimed at mounting an effective
attack on the environmental problem that
will most impoverish our planet, viz., the
massive destruction of biodiversity." This first
Asian edition of the book published in arrangement with IUCN and The International
Academy of the Environment, Geneva, has a
foreword by the (former) Indian Minister of
Environment and Forests, Kamal Nath.
Indus Books
October 1995 Catalogue
New Delhi
The Indus Publishing Company, in its October 1995 catalogue, has listed all its publications on the Himalaya, The sections are divided intoHirnachal Pradesh,U.P, Himalaya,
Eastern Himalaya & North-East, Kashmir and
Ladakh, and "Himalayas-Overall". The books
listed cover a variety of topics—culture, ethnography, sociology, geography, development,
forestry, gazetteers, etc. The authors are overwhelmingly Indian, though a few Nepali and
western writers are also included.
Water and the Quest for
Sustainable Development in the
Ganges Valley
G.P.Chapman and M.Thompson, editors
Mansell Publishing Limited, UK, 1995,
ISBN 072-0-121914
This publication of the Global Development
and the Environmental Series is the outcome
of a conference on "Environmental Problems
in the Ganges-Brahmaputra Basin'" held in
London. The editors present approaches by
experts from both the social and physical
sciences which help in reaching understanding of how society and water interact in the
upstream-downstream complexity of the
Himalaya-Ganga. The challenge, write the
editors, rests on encouraging "institutional
plurality". From the perspective of the
Himalaya, the chapter "Disputed Facts:
A Countervailing View from the Himalaya" is succinct in its articulation of the
highland views.
November/December 1995 HIMAL
Mountain Research and
Development
Vol 15, No 4, November 1995
Jack and Pauline foes, editors
University of California Press
ISSN 0276-4741
This issue includes papers on: the dangers of
"lake drainage" with special reference to the
Imja glacier in Khumbu; a case study of landslide hazard donation in Garhwal; deforestation and forest Policy in "the Lesser Himalayan
Kumaun" and their impact on peasant women
and tribal populations; and glaciological studies in the High Central Andes using digital
processing of satellite images.
Famous Western Explorers to
Ladakh
by Prem Singh ]ina
Indus Publishing Company, New Delhi, 1995
ISBN 81-7387-031-4, Ifo. 250 The first
record of a European visitor to Ladakh dates
back to the 17th century. Since then this
secluded region has attracted a multitude of
travellers, adventurers, mountaineers and
scholars from both the East and the West.
Among them, a few did noticeable work in
Ladakh. This book by an academic, who has
been living in Ladakh for the past 15 years,
collects the experiences of these visitors in one
place and also covers the gap of information
regarding nature, culture, socio-economic activities, and problems and prospects of Ladakh.
John Crook and Henry Osmaston, (eds) (Nigel
Allan)
A Descriptive Grammar of Nepali and an Analyzed Corpus, jayaraj Acharya (David Red)
Mesocosm: Hinduism and the Organization oj a
Traditional Newar City in Nepal, Robert Levy
(Todd Lewis)
Golu Devata, The God oj Justice oj Kumaun
Himalayas, C. M. Agarwal (Linda Stone)
Himalayan Research
Bulletin
Volume XIV (1-2), 1994
Volume XV (1), 1995
HRB has finally caught up with its schedule. A
double issuefor 1994 was produced this spring,
and the first number of 1995 came out in the
summer. "Widi luck the second issue will even
make it out before the year's over," says Barbara Brower, Editor. The topics covered in the
two recent issues are listed below.
Volume XV (1), 1995
Roundtable: Perspectives on the Development
of Himalayan Studies
BOOK REVIEWS
Les dkux du pouvoir: Les Magar et ITimdouisme
au Nepal central, Marie Lecomte-Tilouine
(Laura Aheam)
Nepalese Textiles, Susi Dunsmore (Kathryn
Hartzell)
Children of Tibet: An Oral History oj the First
Tibetans to Grow Up in Bale, Vyvuan Cayley
(Kiela Diehl)
plus, Cumulative Contents of HRB 1981"
to 1994
Volume XIV (1-2), 1994 An Appeal for the
Abolition of Slavery, Chandra Shumsher Jung
Bahadur Rana Himalayan Religionain
Comparative Perspective: Considerations
Regarding Buddhism and Hinduism across
their Indie Frontiers, Todd Lewis
BOOK REVIEWS
Body and Emotion: The Aesthetics oj Illness and
Healing, Robert Desjarlais (Christine Greenway)
Tibetan Thangka Painting: Methods and Materials, David and Janice Jackson (Yin Peet)
Himalayan Buddhist Villages: Environment, Resources, and Religious Life in Zangskar, Ladakh,
RECENT ARRIVALS
1. Civilized Shamans: Buddhism in Tibetan Societies Geoffrey Samuel
(Mandala Edition is being published by arrangement with Smithsonian Institution
Press. Washinton DC, USA)
2. Proceedings of die International Seminar
on Anthropology of Nepal:
People, Problems and Processes Edited by Michael Allen
3. Stories and Customs of the Sherpas
NgawangTenzin Zangbu - Tenboche Reincarnate Lama and Frances
Klatzel
4. Tales of Turquoise: A Pilgrimage in Dolpo Cornneille Jest
5. Jhankri: Chamance de I' Himalaya (in French Language) Eric Chazot
6. Gods, Men and Territory: Society and Culture in Kathmandu Vallley
Anne Vergati
7. Auspicious Music in a Changing Society: The Damai Musicians of
Nepal Carol Tiiigey
8. A guide to the Art and Architecture of the Kathmandu Valley
Michael Hutt
9. KIRTIPUR: An Urban Community in Nepal
Its People, Town Planing, Architecture and Arts
Editors Mehrdad Shokoohy and Natalie H. Shokoohy
Write to: Barbara Brower, Department of Geography, Portland State University, Box 751,
Portland, OR97207-0751 Tel (503) 725-8044;
Fax (503) 725-3.166
Visit Mandala
for
Scholarly books, maps and
guides on Tibet, Nepal, Bhutan
and the Indian Himalaya
NEPAL
MANDALA BOOK POINT
Kantipath, Post Box No.; 528, Kathmandu, Nepal. Tel +977-1-227711 (0) 216100 (R)
Fax + 00977-1-227600,
227372
At t n :
MarJhab
We accept
B
Kailash of the East
AT THE SOUTHEASTERN TIP of Tibet where
the Tsangpo-Brahmaputra river bends around
the eastern-most Himalaya to descend into the
jungles of Assam, lies a mountain that many
Tibetans consider more holy than the great
Mount Kailash.
Kailash is revered by Buddhists, Hindus,
and Jains as the axis-mundi, whose
circumambulation dispels the accumulated
sins of a lifetime. A thousand miles down the
Tsangpo from its source near Kailas.h, stands
the mountain called Kundu Dosempotrang
(The All-gathering Palace of Adamantine Being), in a region Tibetans revere as Beyul
Pemako, the Hidden Land of Lotus Splendour.
According to Tibet's sacred geography,
the mountain lies at the 'heart chakra1 of the
tantric meditational deity Vajravarahi, whose
body forms the esoteric landscape of the surrounding region. Vajravarahi's spiritual consort, Chakrasamvara, is said to be seated on
top of Mount Kailash. The two mountains
conjoin the geographical poles of the Tibetan
environment—from high altitude desert to
lush subtropical rain forest.
In contrast to Kailash1 arid surroundings
on the Chang Tang, Kundu is situated amidst
dense subtropical jungles and a labyrinth of
swamps and lakes. Only the most intrepid of
Tibetan pilgrims succeed in reaching this holiest of mountains, and many die en route,
victims of the terrain, poisonous snakes, or the
aconite tipped arrows of hostile tribes.
It was the great sage Padmasambhava
who pronounced Kundu as the greatest of all
pilgrimages. According to a 16th century text,
"Even taking a single step towards this mountain ensures liberation from the lower realms
of existence."
Kundu first came to the attention of
non-Tibetans in 1881, when the Sikkimese
surveyor-spy Kinthrup, employed by the
British government, made forays into the
Tsangpo gorge region in search of fabled
waterfalls. Captain Henry Morshead and
Lieutenant F.M. Bailey heard of the mountain
again while on an arduous crossing into
Tibet from Assam in 1913. Bailey's account
of his journey is thought by some to have
been the inspiration for Shangri-la in James
Hilton's Lost Horizon, Pemako is indeed the
Tibetans' own Shangri-la.
The picture of Kundu shown here was
taken by writer Ian Baker, who, with fellow
American Hamid Sardar, in August led an
expedition to the inner regions of Pemako.
Traveling south from Tibet, they crossed
snow passes and descended into a tropical
landscape, a unique ecosystem rich in medicinal plants and rare animals, including takin,
red panda and tigers. After days in the
jungle and the perilous crossing of wild tributaries of the Tsangpo, following ancient
pilgrimage routes so deep in the wilderness as
to make all politica! claims to the area seem
superfluous, they arrived in Pemako, where
they were granted a view of the sacred mountain Kundu Dosempotrang, the Kailash of
the East.
This Ship of
Nepal!
A RECENTLY-PUBLISHED book on
Buddhism's early days seems to confirm the
scholarly speculation that merchants from
Nepal, most likely Newars, were seafaring,
traders who sailed from the ports of North
India to as far away as Sumatra around AD
1100.
An article by scholar Hubert Decleer on
"Atisa's Journey to Sumatra" in Buddhism in
Practice (Princeton University Press, 1995),
refers to the master's j oumey to Southeast Asia
to seek the teacher Dharmakrti (also known as
Guru Suvarnadvipa). Atisa, who lived at the
start of the century that saw the destruction of
Buddhism in the Subcontinent, is seen historically as a champion of the Buddhist dharma
who helped in its spread to Tibet.
Atisa's journey over the sea to Sumatra is
fraught with danger, because Mahesvara (Siva),
apparently angry that Atisa has left India in
pursuit of the dharma, tries to block his
pas-sage. At one point, Siva appears on board
and with foreknowledge proposes to end a
ferocious storm if Atisa promises to return
to northern India, and not to go to Tibet or
visit islands like Sri Lanka. As reported by
Atisa, Siva says:
Do not ever travel to the Land of the Snows;
And stop your journey on this Nepalese ship.
Do not go to either Copper Island or any oj
the other small islands
Stop this continuous roaming!
Bfirum hri yaksa, listen to this!
At another point, Tara, Atisa's personal
deity, appears before him simultaneously in
all her 21 forms. They make the second reference to Nepal found in Atisa's account:
Also if that child with the blue face again
recovers, beat her! They said, adding:
"From this day forward, do not allow her
outside this ship of Nepal!"
There seems no doubt that Nepali ships,
indeed, rode the high seas in the time of sage
Atisa. Back then, land-lockedness was less a
problem
than
it
is
now.
b
The first published photograph of Kundu Dosempotrang
and the 'soul lake' at its base.
46
NovemberiDecmber J995 HIMAL
Refugee
Generators of
South Asia
WHILE CERTAIN African countries have long
dominated press coverage, South Asian countries with much smaller areas and populations
generate an unexpectedly high number of
refugees. This is clear from the The State of the
World's Rtju.ge.cs, released by the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees in late
November.
Afghanistan tops the list for the country
of origin of the highest number of refugees:
2.7 million. Tiny Burma, Sri Lanka and China/
Tibet, and tinier Bhutan, make the top-20
worldwide list of refugee exporters. The figures become even more interesting when you
compare the refugee numbers according to
each country's population size. Thimphu, for
example, claims a population of 700,000,
which means that a seventh of all Bhutanese
are presently refugees.
Nepal, which does not generate any refugee flow, makes the top-25 list as a recipient
nation, housing 103.3 thousand Lhotshampa
refugees. The UNHCR report, however, does
not count Tibetans refugees being hosted
by Nepal.
I\ Jill
HIMAL NwemberlDecember 1995
As tourism fuelled the demand for
NOT LONG AGO, an American visitor to a
Dolpo village gomba, noticed a thangka paint- thangkas, the supply increased. Mass production
ing hanging, not in the shrine, where such meant deteriorating quality, but the motifs
paintings are traditionally hung, but in the remained firmly Buddhistic. The recent injection
bedroom, alongside non-religious posters. of the biblical theme, however, takes thangkas in a
A closer look explained why this was the wholly different direction. Christian thangkas are
case. It was a Christian thangka, which some now available in specialist shops in Kathmandu,
travelling Westerners had given to the gomba and are popularised in postcards and calendars
published
by
Missio
Aachen,
a
residents.
Thangkas, the distinctive Buddhist wall Germanproselytismg group. Depictions of Jesus,
hangings of the Himalaya, evidently are Mary, the crucifixion, and the baptism provide
rapidly evolving. The traditional thangka is the subject.
Many of these thangkas were painted by
characterised by the mandala, or bhavachakras
(wheel of life), done in intricate red, blue Lawrence Sinha, born a Christian in Darjeeling, who
or gold. They functioned as aids to enlight- became inspired after seeing tourists eagerly
enment, and for centuries, religipus artists purchase Buddhist thangkas. He decided that
created meticulous paintings in which each Christian paintings done in the traditional genre
hand gesture, facial expression, posture, would be a worthy, and lucrative, addition to the
colour and accoutrement had symbolic proselytising cause. Sinha says it tookhimsixyears
to complete his first thangka,
significance.
h
Banglades
Lanka
Bhutan Sri
Tibet
n Burma
Afghanista
Born-Again Thangkas
47
which depicted historical scenes from the life
of Christ. He received guidance on biblical
details from missionaries.
Sinha takes orders from across the globe.
Business is up, and Sinha now has assistants to
produce the paintings at his workshop in
Baneswar. Prices range upwards from US$300,
making his works more costly than Buddhist
thangkas in the market. The main purpose, he
says however, is not to make money, but "to
preach the word of god."
While Christian missionaries may regard
Sinha's thangkas as a means of assimilating
Christian beliefs to Himalayan culture, there is
no doubt that these born-again thangkas cut
into the heart of the Himalayan Buddhist heritage. What has for centuries been an integral
part of Buddhism is now a pictoral means of
spreading Christianity.
Min Bahadur Sakya, of the Nagarjuna
Institute of Exact Methods in Kathmandu,
says this new departure represents the destruction of Buddhism's very essence.
"Thangkas should be based on canonical texts
and follow prescribed routines," Sakya insists.
In Thangka Row, over in the Thamel
tourist quarter of Kathmandu, not all shop
keepers are dying to sell the Christian paint
ings. "Paap laagchha!" one of them cried. It
would be sinful to sell Christian thankgas.
Meanwhile, Sinha is not worried. In fact, he's
busy with his next project, which he says will
be
(surprise)
a
Muslim
thangka.
Investing on Ama Dablam
GIBRALTAR HAS THE ROCK, and Nepal its for deities' in different guises—as a rock being
Mountain. Ama Dablam, the queen of Khumbu, chiselled to shape, or as the frilly frock of a
is becoming one of the most recognised mas- flamenco dancer. At other times, Perpetual uses
sifs thanks to big-buck advertising by an off- photographic manipulation to show a mountain
shore investment management company called range made up entirely of look-alike Ama
Perpetual.
Dablams, or an Ama Dablam archipelago. Ceri
The company, which carries Ama Dablam March, a Perpetual spokeswoman in London, told
on its logo, has a multi-year, big-spread ad Himal that back in 1983, the company decided
campaign that relies entirely on the mountain's that a mountain would best symbolise the growth
presence. The series shows 'Mother's amulet of its portfolio of funds.
b
Happy Birthday, King!
SHREE PANCH Birendra Bir Bikram Shah Dev,
whose 50th birthday is to be marked with much
fanfare on 29 December under the direction of a
170-member celebration committee headed by
the Prime Minister and including all living past
Prime Ministers, seems well-ensconsced in his
constitutional throne. As he attains half-century,
and his reign approaches 25 years, King
Birendra has reason to be satisfied with having
successfully overseen his kingdom's transition
from absolute monarchy to petulant democracy.
While talk of the sinister "palace hand" continues
to occassionally titillate the marketplace and the
king's presence in Nepali politics remains
palpable, the conventional wisdom at Putali
Sadak is that monarchy is the one constitutional
entity in the new dispensation that has played its
part without major lapse. May it remain so in the
next half century as well, Your Majesty.
t
48
Lion Icon
A STYLISED LION waving from his 15-foot
granite pedestal is about to join the all-seeing
Buddha eyes and the pagoda temple as a
immediately-recognisable Kathmandu icon.
The lion was placed on the Kathmandu
side of the Bagmati river by Nepal's first Prime
Minister, Bhimsen Thapa, in AD1810, to
mark the construction of a wooden bridge
across the Bagmati river. Even though the
gold-leafed statue is not of real antiquity, and
does not have religious significance unlike
most other Kathmandu statuary, it is
well-crafted. The lion stands in dramatic pose,
paw raised in greeting to those crossing over
from Patan.
For many years, the statue escaped notice
because it stood along the approach to the old
bridge. The construction of the new bridge,
built withjapanese aid, which opened in early
December, led to changes in the approach
November/December 1995 HIMAL
New, Improved Bibliotheca
"It was then decided to look for a visual device,
in the Form of a photographic image, that
represented strength, solidity and durability."
All these qualities were found in Ama Dablam,
says March. "This mountain gives meaning
to the proposition that we are offering stability, durability and challenge. Ama Dablam's
shape is now instantly recognisable as
'The Mountain' within financial circles in
the West,
roads, which has resulted in the lion's new
prominence.
Kathmandu commuters have just begun
to discover the lion as he waves them past, b
HIMAL November/December 199S
HIMALAYAN
BIBLIOPHILES
can
rejoice-Bibliotheca Himalayica is back!
Connossieurs who had despaired at the
comatose status of the series have ample reason
Lobe pleased with the publication of two new
books in a 'modernised1 format, The Treasure
Rzvealerof Bhutan by PadmaTshewang eta!,
and
Development
Studies
by
Don
Messerschmidt.
The series was conceived in 1969 by Hallvard
K. Kuloy of Norway, who worked with
UN1CEF in India and Nepal from 1968 to
1979. As he told Himal, was a result of the fact
that Kuloy had time to spare during his stint in
New Delhi. "I did not play golf nor had a family
to worry about, so 1 spent a good deal of time
reading among the cool stacks of the Indian
National Archives, and the somewhat wanner
library of the Archaeological Survey of India,"
Through a large circle of "witty, generous and
knowledgeable friends", Kuloy was introduced
to the wonde r of Himalayan civilisations. Soon,
he was preparing an anthology of old
writings on Tibet and the Himalaya, but the
material was so overwhelming that he abandoned the project. "I thought, why not reprint
the books instead? That is how we first published Colonel Kirkpatrick's
An Account of the Kingdom
ofNepaul, which ■was an
instant
success,"
Kirkpatrick was followed
by Sarat Chandra Das'Jou
r-ney to Lhasa and Tibet and
John Ware Edgar's very
rare Report on a Visit to
Sikhim and the Thibetan
Frontier.
" In retrospec t it is easy
to see why we succeeded: Kuloy
we used better than average paper, found a good
bookbinder, and we
charged a modest price in
relation to quality," says
Kuloy.
t=
When Kuloy was
Q transferred to Nepal in
§ 1972, he approached
■s Ratna Pustak Bhandar,
< the Kathmandu pub2 Usher, and asked them to
take
up
Bibliotheca
Himalayica. "We were a bit
wary at first, but it worked
outbecause back then it was
easier to sell
specialised books on the Himalaya," says
Govinda Shrestha of Ratna.
Bibliodieca Himalayica began to lose steam
in the late 1970s, Himalayan overexposure
resulted in a surplus of touristic publishing
which cashed in on exotica, and scholarly
works remained on the shelves. At the same
time, publishers from India learned that a
market existed for long-forgotten books, and
they started issuing reprints of their own.
What Kuloy calls the "reprint avalanche" swept
his pioneering series out of the market.
Never one to give up, during a visit to
Kathmandu in 1993 Kuloy discussed strategy
with Ratna. Recalls Kuloy, "The answer was
cooperation between small publishers, not
competition, and to bring our published material up to contemporary standards." Enter,
EMR Publishing House, a collaborative effort
of three Kathmandu-based publishers—
Educational Enterprises, Mandala Book
Point and Ratna. Together with a new lease of
life, Bibliotheca Himalayica was also given a
new look.
The newly energised Bibliotheca
Himalayica plans to bring out three titles in the
next few months, including the 'bestseller' of
the series, Ekai Kawaguchi's Three Years in
Tibet. The new volumes retain the
Bibliotheca Himalayica trademark picture
map of the region on its inside covers, but
everything else is different. The sleek pa
perbacks are a far cry from their stodgy
hardcover forbears. They are also more
expensive, but the Western booklover, at
least, does not seem to mind.
is
49
Gurkha Collects His Dues
"YOUR heart must be as big and brave as a
lion's. I am so glad you and the other Gurkhas
were on our side," said Prime Minister John
Major to Victoria Cross winner Havaidar
Lachhiman Gurung. Major then gave Gurung
a check for £100,550, which the latter accepted with his one good hand.
The ceremony held on the steps of 10
Downing Street on 19 August was the culmination of a Gurkha fund-raising
drive that coincided with the fiftieth
anniversary celebrations of the Second
Great War's ending, and the havaldar from
Chitwan was at it center. The sum he received was collected by the readers of the
Sunday Express of London.
Lachhiman Gurung is
one of the 13 Nepali recipi
ents of the Victoria Cross. He
received the honour forholding his bunker and killing 31
enemy soldiers in Taungdaw, Burma, against a ferocious
Japanese attack. He fought
alone for four hours, even
though his right hand was
shattered by a grenade 5
explosion.
g
After the war, having z
also lost the use of an eye and jr
an ear besides his hand, Lachhiman left the
army and retreated to his village of Dahakhani,
13,000 feet high up in the Mahabharat Lekh.
He farmed to provide for a family of six,
traveling down to Bharatpurto collect askimpy
pension. In recent years, due to advancing age
he had to ride piggy-back on one of his sons for
his pension trips.
All that has changed now. As the Gurkha
grapevine spread die word about Lachhiman's
state, his regimental comrades decided to do
something about it. It helped that his regiment
had served under both the Indian and British
flags, as the 8th Gorkha/Gurkha Rifles, and
Lachhiman is the only one in the whole lot to
hold a VC.
The 8th Gurkha Rifles Association of UK
was able to raise {pounds} 4,000 and the 8th
Gorkha Rifles Association of India (which
includes Field Marshal Sam "Bahadur"
Manekshaw) collected NRs. 700,000. It was
decided that a house should be built for
Lachhiman in Bharatpur itself, between the
Indian and British pension camps.
Enter, the Sunday Express came in. Reporter
Deborah
Sherwood
arrived
in
Lachhiman's village to do a writeup, and she
delivered an evocative tale of an old warrior
whom- the world had forgotten. The article
asked for contributions to build the house
in Bharatpur, to £16,000, with surplus
funds to be ploughed into the Gurkha
Welfare Trust to help other hapless Gurkhas.
The story struck the right lag chord with
Express readers, and a magnificent total of
£100,550 was raised, which was what passed
hands on the 10 Downing Street steps as part
of the V-J Day events.
When it rains, it does pour, even
on old Gurkhas.
tachhiman and his wife outside their
Dahakhani house.
(Lepcha) Language, Dictionary of Welttpcha Language, 1876); and^
Rudranand Thakur (Himalayan Lepehas, 1988},:
Letmeclarifythetrue meaning of the two Lepcha names for .;
Sikkim and their correct pronunciations. We, the Lepcha, call;
Sikkim Nye Maayel Lyaang. 'Nye' means1 holy, sacred, paradise..;
'Maayel' means hidden. 'Lyaang' means land.countryor earth. : Two
Lepcha authorities, K.P. Tamsang(please; not 'Tamang') i:
\>y Lyangsang Tamsang
and A: ppning agree that Nye MaayeJ Lyaang means'The.Land of the-;
Hidden Paradise' and 'The Garden of Eden', respectively,1 in their"
; Unsatisfied with the Lepcha names for Sikkirn published in Himal's
books the Unknown and Untold Reality tibout the Lepchas (1983) and ;
iPLACENAMES column (May/June. 1995). 1 hereby present a short
Lepcha, My Vanishing Tribe (1987). . Another Lepcha name for
note on the true meanings and pronunciations of the Lepcha names
Sikkim is 'Renjong Lyaang.' Here, ;
: for Sikkirn.
!:..: 'Ren' meanshonourable, respectable. 'Jyqng'means, living, or 'those :
Numerous writers, authors, scholars and anthropologists have whblivem1. 'Lyaang'; meansland, country, or earth. Thus,Renjyong ;■
published on the Lepcha, the original inhabitants of Sikkim, Darjeeling : Lyaang means 'The: Landof the Honourable People'.ie., the Lepcha; ?.
:: District, arid Ham in east Nepal. Unfortunately, most have written
During ceremonies and functions, :we :use! and: say, loud and clear,i:
;: without in-depth knowledge.1 Quoting inaccurate information from 'Nye Maayel Renjyong Lyaang>: to denote the greater Sikkim, with
.;: reference books by non-Lepchas has become the norm, thus distort- love, respect, and pride, strictly in that order. '.:
May li on
ing the appropriate and attractive names given by the Lepcha. behalf of the Lepcha people, appeal to those inter-.:
In fny opinion, only two non-Lepcha writers have written
ested, up-and-coming writers to cany out an intensive field study :
■ books that throwuseful light on our language and culture. They are: ; aboiit our corrrmunity under an able Lepcha informant, to study the
.[ lieutenant General G.B.Mainwaring (The Grammar of the Song. '. Lepcha language, and then Avrite the truth about the .Lepcha. : £
:
:
Sikkim with Love, Respect
and Pride
50
l.
November/December !995 HIMAL
b
ran
SUMMIT HOTEL
and SUMMIT
TREKKING PVT. LTD.
KUPONDOLE HEIGHT, LALITPUR
P.O. BOX 1406, KATHMANDU, NEPAL
TEL:521894, 521810 FAX:
977-1-523737, TLX: 2342 SUMMIT NP
V
Himalayan High Treks
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Stationary ana* Decorative Handmade
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Saue the Under-Priuileged
people of Nepal.
Free Catalog (800) 455-8735
Outside the U.S.A. & Canada please call:
00l.4l5.86l.2391 orwnletous:
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H
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Tel / Fax: 00977 -1 - 278 088
V
BONDA HIGHLANDERS' CONDITION, as
they tachh linear time, is discussed by the late Indian sociologist Bikram
Namyan Nanda (1954-1994) in Contours of Continuity and Change:
The Story of the Bonda Highlanders, Sage Publications, 1994 pp
208-209.
Given (such) a void in the structure of consciousness, and the myth
of development which returns the highlands rs to the mythical world
of spirits, any attempt by the highlanders to escape their present
predicament arising out of their own involved discourses of space,
time, work and experience of their meanings would indeed be vain.
Lacking their grip over their own language of description of their
present, the minimum, margin to decide their existential conditions
in the present, that is so necessary a precondition to decide their
destiny, the Highlanders are unable to project a notion of the
future--a future in which anything is possible insofar as the
impossibilities are everywhere. The islands of linear time that
strike tike match-sticks in the dark landmass of life shed light upon
segments, but not on the whole continuous process of which these
segments are a part. That they can themselves take control of and
thereby decide the future of the highlands is unknown to them.
Perhaps capable of revolt at the official wickedness, their living
social and symbolic conditions do not provide the possibility of a
critical consciousness. Will the highlanders be able to impute their
sufferings to a system explicitly understood as unjust and
inadmissible? Or will they accept their suffering as natural and so
total that there is no possible escape from the 'natural' order of
things.
The political conceptions and symbolic associations of the
highlanders are locked up in the logic of the social transformation...
This process of transformation subjectively denies and objectively
prohibits the possibility for highlanders to view their situations and
figure out sufferings. Between their attitude to their circumstances
and their material conditions falls the veil of a diabolical development. The discourse of such a development denies them their time
and leisure. It devalorises the values of their labour power and
vociferously violates their collective values associated with labour. It
privatises their collective and symbolic environment and campaigns
for the pragmatism of privatised production. Ironically, or not so
ironically, in undermining the traditional production practices in the
highlands, it would probably unfurl the flagofwhat is truly tribalism,
as we see in some other parts of the country.
Quivers of agony Puts poetry
Upon supple steel What is
theory? Pathos... Versifies
verbs Memorises melancholy
Comments on metaphor!
Well, what of the possible.
When pathos is inevitable?
o
If impure poetry
Offends mastery in theory
How can the victim
In the given
Vocalised in the vernacular,
Proficient in the particular.
Trumpet the song of silence.
Listen to what seems unfamiliar;
Voice the possibility of an impossibility?
■ HIGGELDY-PIGGELDY DEVELOPMENT is
better lhanjorce-jed Westernised models, writes cultural theorist Michael
Thompson in Water and the Quest for Sustainable Development,
edited with Graham Chapman (Mansell, London, 1995, ISBN 0 7201
2191 4).
We in the West are so accustomed to offloading our obsolete
technologies (car assembly lines, for instance) and our unfashionable ideologies (planning, for instance) on to Third World countries
that we find it difficult to entertain the possibility of anything
valuable ever coming the other way: 'from them, to us'. That,
however, is what is happening now with the contradictory certitudes
approach. While U.S. Congressmen continue to demand
'one-armed scientists' (so they cannot say 'on the other hand'), and
British MPs still rant on about "bogus professors'(by which they
mean those recognized experts who happen not to share their
particular certainty), social foresters in Nepal are actually getting the
trees to grow systematically modifying their 'Western science' idea
of what a healthy forest looks like until it can mesh constructively
with the villagers' 'home-made' idea of what a healthy forest looks
like. Out go the eucalyptus seedlings, the straight line and the
boundary fences; in come wind-seeded indigenous species,
higgeldy-piggeldy layouts, and locally funded forest guardians. The
plurality of problem definitions, in other words, is seen as a
valuable resource, not something to be got rid of before work can
begin.
This is not to say that all the Himalayan policy actors have
abandoned their 'single definition1 approaches, but only that the
plural rationalities framework is now in place: both in practice and
in theory. Those who define the problem as 'too many people1 are
now able to debate constructively with those who see it as 'not
enough food', and they are able to agree that, given the scale of the
uncertainty that surrounds the facts at issue, both definitions are
legitimate. The situation is similar with contradictory definitions of
what development is. Those (the members of the Chipko Movement, for instance) who advocate land-based self-sufficiency are
able to countenance those (the 'Trade Not Aid' campaigners, for
instance) who favour a resurgence of the intensive trading that lay
behind the original emergence of the Nepalese kingdoms, and both
are then able to connect their arguments with the views of those (the
Hunzas of the Pakistan Himalaya, for instance) who see development aid as a way of expanding their agricultural production, not in
order to become self-sufficient, but in order to break out of their
mountain fastness and into the global market-place.
NovembetlDezmber 1995 HIMAL
.
Nor are the pluralized people of the Himalayan region just
sitting there waiting for the debate over what development is to be
resolved before they can start to do it, The self-sustainers (the
'tree-huggers' of the Indian Himalayas, for instance) are getting on
with sustaining themselves; the traders (the Manang-bhotis who
live in the remote valley behind Annapuma, for instance) are merrily
flying Apple computers into Kathmandu from Thailand and
Tibetan carpets out to New York; and the exuberant
agriculturalists of Pakistan have been so successful in breaking OIK
that Hunza apricots can now be found on the shelves of any
London wholefood store.
That all this is happening in the Himalayas is not in dispute. The
dispute is over whether or not it is sustainable and, if it is not, what
needs to be done about it. However, since the facts that would decide
that are well inside the pale of uncertainty, each actor is free to
construct his or her own answer.
■ THE CORRUPTIONS OF BUDDHISM, as
described in The Outline of History by H. G. Wells, Gassel! and Company,
London 0951) (revised edition, pp 408-409), provides an alternative
view of Buddhism to that of Bernardo Bertolucci's The Little Buddha,
...Except for Gautama's insistence upon Right Views, which was
easily disregarded, there was no self-cleansing element in either
Buddhism, Taoism, or Confucianism, There was no effective prohibition of superstitious practices.spirit-raising, incantations, prostrations, and supplementary worships. At an early stage a process of
incrustation began, and continued. The new faiths caught almost
every disease of the corrupt religions they sought to replace; they
took over the idols and the temples, the altars and the censers.
Tibet today is a Buddhistic country, yet Gautama, could he
return to earth, might go from end to end of Tibet seeking his own
teaching in vain. He would find that most ancient type of human
ruler, a god-king, enthroned, the Dalai Lama, the "Living Buddha".
At Lhasa he would find a huge temple filled with priests, abbots, and
lamas-he whose only buildings were huts and who made no
priests--and above a high altar he would behold a huge golden idol,
which he would learn was called "Gautama Buddha!" He would
hear services intoned before this divinity, and certain precepts,
which, would be dimly familiar to him, murmured as responses.
Bells, incense, prostrations, would playtheir part in these amazing
proceedings. At one point in the service a bell would be rung and a
mirror lifted up, while the whole congregation, in an access of
reverence bowed lower...
About this Buddhist countryside he would discover a number
of curious little mechanisms, little wind-wheels and water-wheels
spinning, on which brief prayers were inscribed. Every time these
spin, he would team, it would count as a prayer. "To whom?" he
would ask. Moreover, there would be a number of flagstaffs in the
land carrying beautiful silk flags, silk flags which bore the perplexing
inscription, "Om Marti padme hum," "the jewel is in the lotus."
Whenever the flag flaps, he would learn, it was a prayer also, very
beneficial to the gentleman who paid for the flag and to the land
generally. Gangs of workmen employed by pious persons, would be
HINIAL November/December !995
going about the country cutting this precious formula on cliff stone.
And this, he would realize at last, was what the world had made of
his religion! Beneath this gaudy glitter was buried the Aryan Way to
serenity of soul.
i BUT THIS WVERWAS ALWAYS FILTHY, wrote
Kabir, the fifteenth century saint-cum-poet ofBenaras who ridiculed all
formalised religion, who was wiiling to say it out loud that the Ganga stank.
Bach then, you could be politically incorrect. (Re/: Hess and Singh, 1986.)
Pandit think
before you drink
that water The house of
clay you are sitting in —
all creation is pouring through it.
Fifty-five million Yadavs soaked there,
and eighty-eight thousand sages,
At every step a prophet is buried.
All their clay has rotted.
Fish, turtles and crocodiles
hatched there. The water is thick
with blood. Hell flows
along that river, with
rotten men and beasts.
Hi HIMALAYAS, a poem by Eelum in Cornice 1995, annual
magazine of the Rato Bangala School in Patan,
The thing 1 always love to see, Which
always fills me up with glee. The thing
which tourists love to climb. And have the
most tremendous time.
It reaches out to touch the sky,
It's higher than a bird can fly,
Here lies the tall Mount Everest,
Which is taller than all the rest.
In the northern part of Nepal it lies. Quite of a
lot of space it occupies, It's full of glaciers,
rivers, ice and snow. If the sky is clear, we can
see them in a row.
It has very cold weather. It is
whiter than a dove's feather,
There we find many yaks,
Carrying loads of heavy sacks.
i
Here we find our national flower. It
is higher than the Twin Tower, It is
bordered by Tibet, And as a mountain
range it's perfect.
S3
Northwest makes it easy to go to America. With a choice
of 8 Choose a connecting city that suits you best: gateways. And connection to 200
Bangkok, Hong Kong or Singapore.
cities beyond.
generous free flight plan there is. General Sales
Agent in Nepal :
Northwest has daily 747 flight via Tokyo or
Seoul straight to the U.S.A.
Be sure to ask about WorldPerks, the most
Ma I la Treks,
Malta Hotel Arcade,
Kathmondu, Tel. 418 389
NORTHWEST
AIRLINES
SOME PEOPLE JUST KNOW HOW TO FLY.5'
Chanda Sharma 35 Solassal \nSalasm Bombay by Mlra
Nalr. Sharma's portrayal introduced the
prototypical Nepali prostitute in Bombay to an
international audience for the first time.
Human Rights Flavour of
the Month
Rape for Profit: Trafficking of Nepali Girls and
Women to India's Brothels
Human Rights Watch/Asia 1995
are effective organisations, but all are
Kathmandu-based. On-the-ground rural orReview by John Frederick
ganizations such as SAFE, General Welfare
Pratisthan, MANK, EASE, Tripura Sundari and
This book is about tragedy, major cragedy. DSS weren't consulted. Why? Because they
Unfortunately, Rape jar Profit is also a tragedy, don't speak polished English?
and not a minor one. The world listens to
The researchers visited Kathmandu as
Human Rights Watch and HRW wasn't watching, usual, Nuwakot as usual, and border towns as
it was dozing. The book will have impact, and will usual. Wake up, folks. Trafficking from
solidify an obsolete perception of the trafficking Nuwakot and the districts around the
industry in Nepal.
Kathmandu Valley still exists, but it is no
The book is a competent summary of a longer the main show. Pressure on traffickers
handful of reliable data and a shovelful of and increased market demand has spread
questionable data and outdated conventional girl collection all over the country, especially
wisdom. You've seen it on TV, you've read it in into the Western, Mid-Western and
Newsweeh: poor Tamang girl from Nuwakot gets Far-Western Regions.
abducted to India and ends up an HIV-positive
Check it out in Bombay. The majority of
brothel slave. It is clearly a good story, it keeps new girls are not Tamangs anymore—in fact a
selling. However, it is a portrait of trafficking high proportion are from poor Bahun and
circa 1989, and doesn't reflect the radical Chhetri families. In Calcutta, too, there are
changes the trafficking industry has undergone fewer Tamangs; many are Bahun-Chhetris and
since—changes we must be aware of if Rai-Limbus funnelled through Dharan, one of
trafficking is to be confronted.
Nepal's sin cities. The trafficking industry has
The onus must be put upon the researchers, aggressively evolved, and it is time to focus
who followed the well-worn path of journalists interventions beyond Nuwakot.
and production crews pursuing the human
Sniffing for traffickers, the researchers
rights flavour of the month. They chose the went touring to three "border towns", one of
usual sources for their information: the NGO's which, Butwal, is nowhere near the border.
that show up at all the seminars. All
But
think
a
minute.
No
self-respecting
HIMAL November/December J9S5
trafficker is going to be hanging out in a border
town, except for a 2 a.m. cup of tea on the way
south with his prize. We don't yet know the
trafficking hubs, but we can guess, and the
towns selected by Human Rights Watch probably aren't high on the list.
If trafficking is to be stopped, we need to
know where to stop it. We also need to know
what causes it_'poverty' is a lazy answer. The
vast majority of Nepalis are impoverished, but
we don't see girls lined up hooking along the
roadsides. To design intervention, we have to
look further: at the pervasive discrimination
against females, at the disruptionof traditional
family structures, and at violence against
women and girls in their own communities.
Rape for Profit's recommendations are limited to central government and police activities. They are viable recommendations, although neither party gets a medal for outstanding devotion to citizens1 welfare. The
only reference to community activities is negative: local opposition to anti-traffickers in
Nuwakot. In Nuwakot, selling daughters is
an established business—of course, there's
opposition. In the other 90 percent of the
country, trafficking is new and communities
are angry. They can resist trafficking, especially with support.
UNICEF, with Nepali NGO collaboration,
is promoting the establishment of a community-based sentinel system. Local NGOs are
conducting legal education at the grassroots
level, to empower communities to bust traffickers if the cops won't. Communities can't
wait while first-world nations and the central
government investigate, monitor, establish,
accede to and ensure. Traffickers, sex-starved
clients and HIV aren't waiting.
The scene has changed , and Human Rights
Watch/Asia should have picked that up. Rape
/orPro/itpaintsahorrific portrait of trafficking
in Nepal. Unfortunately, the reality is farworse.
The book prescribes New York solutions to
the problem. Fortunately, grassroots solutions
are possible. The researchers did a skilful,
sensitive job of presenting the facts they collected. Wish they'd do the book again, and
collect up-dated facts this time.
t>
John Frederick Is a Kathmandu-bused writer
specialising in gender and children's Issues, Including
prostitution anil trafficking.
55
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IIIIIII
III
in
IIIIIII
.;
Gurkhas of Imagination
Warrior Gentlemen: "Gurkhas" in the Western Imagination
by Lionel Caplan
Berghahn Books, Oxford 1995
ISBN 1-57181 -852-9, £26
A book about the marginalisation oj a people at
home and abroad.
Review by Harka Gurung
Warrior Gentlemen is not merely an addition
to the voluminous literature on the Gurkhas of
Nepal (see 'The Gurkha Guide' Himaljul/Aug
1991). It presents an entirely new perspective
that will provoke those attuned to the stereotyped genre. The term 'Western imagination'
in the sub-title of the book may invoke Edward Said's Orientalism (London, 1978), but
the reference here is entirely to English or
British imagination. After all, the Gurkhas
have never served under officers other than
British (and Indian after 1948). The extensive
bibliography the author provides includes
311 published entries of which only three
are non-English.
Caplan's book is well-researched
and organised. The introduction is a
review of Gurkha texts and Gurkha
involvement in British service. The
second chapter relates Gurkhas to
their homeland in economic, social,
and political context. The third
chapter is an interesting description of
that particular species of British
officers who lead Gurkhas. The
next two chapters are essays into the
image construction of stereotyped
Gurkhas. The concluding chapter attempts
to synthesise how the text and colonial
power are interlinked to produce the
imagined Gurkhas.
To begin, the author relates available
literature to the social and cultural settings
from which the officers themselves come. In
this discourse, there are only romantic
approvers, since the same 'tatterdemalion
bands' (Pemble, 1971, p.28) as Nepalese soldiers are transformed into beau ideal soldiers
under the British. One of the most distinguishing features of this literature is the strong
sense of disciplined continuity. The series of
Gurkha
handbooks
include
Buchanan-Hamilton (1819), Hodgson
(1833), and
HIMAL November/December 1995
Vansittart (1894) and their versions on ethnic
qualities. Early Gurkha heroic tales and their
loyalty to the British are recounted as sacral
mantra. The author discovers that the Gurkha
is a creation of military ambience.
Caplan, an anthropologist, explains that
Nepal has no category of people referred to as
'Gurkhas', only certain ethnic groups preferred
in
Gurkha Economy, Gurkha Society
The chapter on 'Gurkhas at home' is of much
interest from the Nepalese perspective. Caplan
cites anthropological studies and official data
on the economic benefits from Gurkha service. On the latter, the officially quoted are
some £22 million as annual pay and approximately £,5.6 million as pension. It would be
much higher in the case of pay and pension
from the Indian army, as Gulmi district alone
receives an annual pension of Rs 1,5 crore in
Indian currency.
Caplan raises the question of the annual
subsidy paid by the British for permission to
recruit Gurkhas, a subject on which the Nepal
government has remained silent. According to
available information, this amounted to Rs 10
lakh annually since 1919 and Viceroy Wavell
raised it to Rs 20 lakh per year in 1945. The last
time this amount was transferred from the
State Bank of India to the Nepal Rastra Bank
was in 1976/77 (B. Lai, Himal 2047, Nepali
edition, p. 15). However, some information on
the British grant made in recognition of the
"service rendered by her people and her rulers
during World War I" (see Pahari, Himal, Jul/
Augl991) may be useful here. Part of this
grant was used for the construction of the Bir
Military Hospital in Kathrnandu. This was
followed by a grant of IRs 76 lakh after World
War II and known as the Post-War Reconstruction Fund, initially handled by a joint
Nepal-Indian committee, the Central
Coordination Board. It is now operated
by India, and the Sainik Nivas building
at Thamel and the various District
Soldiers' Boards are the outcome.
Gurkha remittance has much
economic significance, and the increasing pressure for army service
suggests the deteriorating economy
of the hills. Caplan cites Macfarlane
(Resources and Population, 1976) and
Des Chene (In Service of Coionialism,
military service. These Mongoloid tribals
constitute an overwhelming majority in
foreign armies but in Nepal itself Caucasoid
Chhetris
predominate. He also clarifies anglophile
Jung Bahadur's ambivalent role in restricting
Gurkha recruitment by the British. Formal
agreement was reached only in 1886, with the
accession of Bir Shumshere who sought
British support in his power struggle against
Jung Bahadur's son.
1988) about past negative attitude to
enlistment among the Gurungs. In
early days, the headman used to
assign youths from poor and indebted
households as recruits to the gallawala
(recruiting agent). Nowadays, the recruiters
are bribed by the wealthy to send their sons to
the foreign army.
Another important change is in the direction of flow of army income. Once, the only
form of cash flow to rural areas, it is now being
diverted to urban areas for investment in real
estate and new enterprises. As Caplan points
out, there has been considerable migration of
ex-Gurkhas to Kathmandu, but they have also
spawned colonies in Pokhara, Butwal,
Chitawan, Dharan and elsewhere.
Captantouches on [he social effect Gurkha
service has had on rural Nepal. Although there
is no clear evidence of demographic
disequilibrium on the fertility level,
large-scale male out-migration increased
the auto nomy o f women of t he soldie ring
communities, but also increased their
burden. The role of ex-servicemen in
spreading education has been noted by
several observers. Once illiterate tribal
youths, the soldiers exposed to Roman
Nepali and the regimental Brahmin chaplain,
return home as role models of Nepali
speakers and neo-Hindus along with
economic resource.
What has remained problematic is the
political implication of Gurkha service. The
ex-servicemen have co-existed with traditional
elites or taken over leadership roles according
to local circumstances. In the majority of cases,
they have emerged as community leaders. At
the national level, they are handicapped by the
power strucmreofhigh-castedominance,both
in politics and administration. The very fact
that military service abroad drains the best
talent from their community makes them unable to compete for positions of power within
Nepal, This long tradition of seeking the external alternative has certainly marginalised them
within Nepal.
On the sociology of Gurkha officers, while
the chroniclers continue to emphasise peculiarities of Gurkha ethnicities, the Gurkha
soldiersare not necessarily concerned with the
pedigree of their officers. Caplan, however,
enlightens us on their public school heritage
and empire model in education. The accounts
of hierarchy among Royal and Indian officers,
elitism of Gurkha regiments, their corporate
identity, and'muscular Christianity'epitomised
in sports, make interesting reading.
The very fact that
military service abroad
drains the best talent
from the martial
communities makes
them unable to
compete for positions
of power within Nepal.
58
Five Gurkha Victoria Cross holders with Queen Elizabeth and Prince Philip in 1986.
Biological Determinism
Some Nepalese were categorised as 'martial
races' based on the doctrine of biological determinism. Thisethnic classification was based
on hearsay, as only a few mi litary officials were
permitted to visit Nepal Despite the close ties
of die Rana regime with British India, Nepal
had only 153 European (mostly British)
visi-toreduring the period 1881-1925 (P.
Landon, Nepal, Vol.II, 1928).
Gurkha lite ra tu re consisten tly emphasises
the utter loyalty of the soldiers to their British
officers, and the bond of trust between them.
That the handbooks emphasised simple youths
from remote pans as ideal recruits fit well with
the pervasive anti-imellectualism of the army.
To gain unquestioning allegiance, the Gurkha
authors contrasted the colonial subjugation of
India with Nepal's spirit of independence The
mystic bond was based on paternal patronage
in which the British led and the Nepalese
followed. A feature article in The Economist
(London) last year, suggested raising a UN
peacekeeping force of Gurkhas with British
officers. The myth of unique loyalty was
ex-plodedby the'comparatively dour and
quicker anger' of an eastern regiment at
Honolulu in 1986, however.
Another burden is the blind bravery of
Gurkhas that Sir Ralph Turner memorialised
as 'bravest of the brave'. Indeed, since the
Victoria Cross was instituted in 1856, Gurkha
regiments have claimed 26, and half of these
were awarded to Gurkhas rather than to their
British officers. These include six Magar, four
Gurung.andoneeachLimbu.RaiandTamang.
However, Caplan recounts the fearful memories of ex-servicemen he met in Ham who
equate bahaduri (bravery) with medals and not
of theBaynes (fro Reward but Honour?) variety,
Gurkha courage seems to be related to absolute obedience; and that Gurkhas also experienced fear is clearly presented by P, Onta
(Himal,Nov/Dec 1994), referring to the French
front during World War L
The 'miniaturisation' process of Gurkhas
that evolved from long association with the
British is being replicated in the Indian army.
In essence, whatever you call it—Gurkha
project or Gurkha syndrome—is an expression of Nepal's dependence. Caplan makes
reference to Nepali intellectuals who decry
Gurkha service as a vestige of colonialism.
They need to consider the exploitation that
compels these hill men to fight and die for
others. Nepalese elites should have certainly
realised that 'foreign is not familiar1 as when,
abroad they all have had to resort to Mount
Everest, Sherpa or Gurkha to locate their
Nepalese identity!
This book is about the marginalisation of
a people at home and abroad. Gurkhas do not
have the choice of mercenaries epitomised in
SirWatterScott'sQuentinDurwarci. Their sup
posed juvenility and exoticism are ideological
constructions harking back to an imagined
time. As analysed by Caplan, Gurkha litera
ture is basically a colonial discourse,
t>
li.Gunaig went (oKfng Oeo rge'i Military School, Juttundcr.
His father, aSubedat of 1/3 GurkhaRlfles, fought in Gollipoli
during World War landvtas mentioned In dtspcilthes during
the Wazir'man campaign (1919),
November/December 1995 HIMAL
g views
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Swayambhu stupas in early morning.
Powerful Valley
Power Places of Kathmandu
Hindu and Buddhist Holy Sites in the Sacred Valley of Nepal
Text by Keith Dowman
Photography by Kevin Bubrishi
inncr Traditions International, Vermont
ISBN 0-89281-540-X US$39.95
Review by William B. Forbes
Keith Dowman is a well-known translator of stupas in Kathmandu, Patan, Bhaktapur, and
Tibetan texts, and a writer on Buddhist lore. their environs. There is also a glossary of
Kevin Bubriski is an award-winning photogra- Sanskrit and Newari terms, and a Valley map
pher, recognise d for his stark, black- and-white showing the location of each site.
The hook is the result of Dowman's love
portrayals of the face of Nepali dukha. After
penning his pioneering guidebook, Power of the special ambience of the Valley and its
Places of Central Tibet, Dowman has been fo- people, blessed by gods and buddhas. He
cusing his research on the "power places" of defines a power place as "a focal point of divine
Kathmandu Valley. In the meantime, Bubriski energy, where humans can make contact with
has turned on to the magic of colour transpar- the realm of the gods" These are sites where
ency, and taken a new look through the lens at "geomantic forces, divine myths, and human
history and legend combine to make these
his old hometown and surroundings.
The result of Bubriski's conversion to less locations sources of spiritual revitalization and
harsh realities, and Dowman's continuing re- psychic renewal."
Dowman1 is particularly good at describsearch into the less obvious ones, is a handsome over-sized volume, Power Places of ing the religious tapestry of myth and custom,
Kaihmandu. The text consists of 19 entries woven by various ethnic and religious groups,
detailing a selection of temples, shrines and which covers the Valley and its power places.
Each place is described on several levels of
detail. First come the myths and legends, after
that a history of the particular site, and finally
a detailed description of it, explaining its
various features and constructions, and highlighting the artwork in and around the shrine.
All in all, this is text to enlighten the layman
and stimulate the scholar.
Bubriski's offering is a portfolio of beautiful photographs, some of them quite memorable. The close-ups of the gods, the details of
temples and stupas, emerge from the mist of
time, fixed, at least for a moment, against the
accelerated blur of modern vision. Bubriski is
particularly inspired when he catches the divine elation of street festivals, and the serene
acts of human devotion.
Here is a photo album which will add
significance while adorning the book-lover's
cocktail table. Frankly, though, this book only
whets one's appetite for a complete treatment
of the subject with the photos paying a little
more attention to the text. One picture is
worth many words, and when one reads that
a certain sculpture is "the most impressive of
its type in the subcontinent", it would be nice
to see it on the page. Also, the camera could
have paid more attention to the geomantic
parameters (geomancy - divination by means of
lines andfi.gu.res), which in some respects are of
primary importance, of some of these power
places. Swayambhu, Changu,Sankhu,Chobar
are all there, but one does not see the hill, the
grove, the gorge, etc. There are no sangams,
tinhas, or kundas, either.
These and other shortcomings of this
book might be due to its "cocktail table"
presentation. Ke game, as they say in Nepal,
what to do? Now that we have had our cock
tail, we look forward to a full bhoj...
b
W.P.Forbes is a Sanskrittsl.
HIMAL November/December 1995
61
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M
K n o w
Himals, Mustaghs and Shans
of South Central Asia
/Ifrun i'UT'i
Tibet, 39"18N/93°40E
Ailim Shan 6.025m
lilmalaya-Garhvial-Weti (Cangotri)
India, 30[>46N/79l1'58E
Chaukhamba 7,138m
H(!i!.n:' .Hli.'Jrl! S>,'..':
Him alaya-Garhwal-Ccntral
Tibei, 3Ii050N/96s0OE
Kekesaijimen 6,224m
Indiii, 3O°55N/79°35E
Kamet 7.736m
H i m a l
, ,vi,/ i n . , ' , ■ . . -. ..ui Himal
p , Everest
(Chomnlungma) 8,846m
Himalaya-Nanga
Parbat Pakistan.
34 14N/74"35E Nsngi Parbut
8,125m
KarakoTam-Saicr Muslujh
India, 34 O52N/77°45E
y
waltfiB Hlmdl
Nepal, 27°58N/86*26H
Mtnlungtst 7,181m
Ka rakoram Sakhm and iii rri. i
O
High magazine has made its second attempt (the first being in 1993) to
make one. comprehensive list of all the mountain ranges of the world
and their more prominent peaks. Introducing "High Mountain Ranges
1995" in the. July issue, Editor Geoff Hirtles says even this newinventory
is not necessarily complete or final.
This seems indeed to be the case, as the High list has 11 himals in
Nepal, while Nepali geographers agree that the country's mountains can
be divided into at least 23 distinct himals. This could, of course, be
nothing more than different readings of what, constitute a mountain
range (himal in the Nepal Himalaya, mustdgh in the Karakoram, and
shan in Tibet and bordering areas). Similarly, the Western Ghats is
included, but its eastern counterpart, having a lower elevation no
doubt, is ignored.
On the whole, however. High has made a worthwhile contribution
to the greater understanding of the world's mountains and as pan of this
last Know Your Himal column, we have decided to print a somewhat
lengthy extract of the High compilation including the highest peak
in each himal. It is limited to the mountains of Central-South Asia,
with the final section referring to himals of other continents for the sake
of comparison.
Y o u r
Himalaya-SQikim
Nl^ikkLm, 2
cnjunpa 1 H,5y5m
West Nepal, 30"OON/aO°56E
Api 7,132m
SaserKangri I 7,692m
Muttdgh India,
35"09N/77"35E Mamostonf;
Kangri 7,525m
Kathgar Ronft (Kun Lun)
Sinkiang, SSHfiN^S'lS
Kongur 7,719m
Afghanistan, 34"30N/67°O0E
ShahFuladi5,B4m
Hindu Kbln Afghanistan
-Pakisian
Kun Liw Shan
Tirith Mir 7,706m
Tibet. 35"22N/81"10E
Peak 7,120m
Jiin,u< Raj
Pakis[an, 36M5N/73 n10E
Koyo Zom 6,689m
hletinglnne Kangrl Tibet,
38348N/81"0OE NRan^lonR
Kanpri 6,450m
HoJuri! Shun
Tibet, SS^ON/SS^OE
KangihagRI 6.415m
■'.■■;'i. 1
K 'j■■».',.i■...;.'J.vi
5han
Tibet, 30°24N/90"36E
Peak 7,353m
Jurhen (71 Shan Tibet,
33(130N/9]"00E Gcladaingong
6,525m
Pamirs
Tadiitklstan, 38°56N/72u 00t;
Pik Kommunizma 7 h 483m
Karakoram-Balloro Mustagh
P k / C h / l d
Tit.it Shan
Kyrgli yzsi an-Sinkiang
420O2N/B0o08E
Pik Pobeda 7.439m
K2S,fillm
I vn i ■( i !;i' r« ru -ft] (u TO
Garsgdiic Shan
Tibet, 31°00N/81°2On
l.i'!iii-.:> Kangri 7,093m
u i .inWIN Himal
Nepal, 2BO33N/84"33E
Muniiihi 8,156m
Pakistan, 36°31N/740 3lE
Batura 1 7,785m
Other Continent*
Ghats (Weilem) India, i
r20N/76°30E Dodabeii.ii
2,633m
Himalaya-Gurla Maruil\ata
Karakoram-Haramcsh
Pakisun, 35"5ON/74°54E
Haramosh 7,409m
AFRICA
tApunt Kilimanjaro
Tanzania Kibo
5,895m
Htmalaya-Annapurna Himal
Nepal. 2B°33N/83°49E
Annapumal 8,07ftm
Hiniiilayii-.J;u;aI Hi ma!
KamkoTam-Hispar Mwstagh
Pakistan, 36O2ON/75°11E
Dtsughtl Stir 7,884m
ANTARCTICA Mt,
Vitison 4,H97tn
Him alaya-Assam Assam,
29"3BN/95"03E Namche
Banva 7.756m
linrwlaya-Knnjirobii Himni
West Nepal, 29 0 24N/820 42E
Kanjircba 1 6.682m
Karalwram-KishSwar-Pada r
India. 33"30N/76 cO0E Sickle
Moon 6,575m
AUSTRAUA
S.iufin. m Alps New
ZfjiliUui
Mt.
Cook 1,755m
Ilirriii!.:v'i B
Bhutan, 2S°06N/90°25E
Ganpar Punsum 7,541m
Hlmtlldya-Kaihtni rtZa mkar
India, 34(pO0N/76"02E Nun
7,135m
Karakoram-Panmah Mlistngli
Pakistan, 35 i 57N/75 0 45E
Balmha Brakk (Ogte) 7,285m
EUROPE
Caucasus
r l -D t : u ! i I . - j J i i i m i l
Tibet, 30"26N/Sl1'iaF. tiurla
Mandhata 7,728m
Nepal, 28012N/85u48li
Lonpo Gang 7,083m
Wtsr Nepal, 28t'45N/83045E
D t l
[ 8,167m
Himalaya- Klnntiu r-Spitl
India, 32(1J0N/78°2OE
Gya 6,794m
Himalaya-Cwantsh
Himalayn-Kulu-lMhui
Himal
Nepal. 28°23N/85°07E
Gancsh I (Yangra) 7,406m
Hlmalaya-GaThv/al-East
India, 30(22N/79°58E
NandiDevi 7,f)17m
HIMAL Nowmber/Dewmbw 1995
India, 77°4;N/32°05E
Parbari Peak 6,633m
tiimdlaya-Lnngtang tiimnl
NcpaVTibri. iVHN/asHTE
Shisha Pangma 8,046m
Karakoram-Rakapashi
Pakistan, 36o0UN/74u30n
Rakflposhi 7,788m
Kaiabirflfn-Suftiiro and Mashtrbrum
India/Pakistan, 35°38N/76"19E
Masbcrbrum 7,821m
Ceorgi a- Ait rbaljan
Elhius 5,633m
NORTH AMERICA
Alaska Range
USA
Mt. McKinlcy 6,195m
SOUTH AMERICA
Cordiller Argentina
Acaneagua 6,960m
Abominably Yours,
Having achieved fame of sorts following
word in the mountains that humans believed
the last page of Himal was the best, I was
taken completely by surprise, and was
acutely embarrassed, to read about this
drastic change affecting not just my own
budding career but the lives of all who live in
the high himals.
Himal going South Asian, hmpfh! Now
1 see the wisdom of our foremothers who
declared humans untrustworthy, especially'
editors and publishers. They use columnists
just as long as they need you, she had said
before she was called away.
I hope you realise that 1 am really
annoyed. At the least, you could have
extended the basic courtesy and informed me
of the change. And you cannot hide behind
Nepal's poor mail service because Langur is
a pal of mine.
But no, in your excitement, all wrapped
up in media-moghul visions of a huge
market a la the Americans on China, colour
spreads, many-fold increase in circulation,
etc, etc, my page was completely forgotten. 1
was dispensable. In any case, you probably
reckoned, if the need arose you could get
any one of my worldlywise cousins in the
plains to take my place and do your bidding
for the price of a solitary banana.
Or could it be, Editor Saheb, that have
you finally tired of this hairy feminist
columnist from Upper Barun? And have you
plans to get a spineless, submissive mermaid
as a replacement for your Himai (god forbid)
South Asia? I am convinced that you have
decided to go South Asian only to get rid of
your back page columnist. 1 smell a
conspiracy, I sniff perfidy, and, let me add, 1
see the foreign hand.
Your pitch says you plan to write and
report about 1.3 billion humans in South
Asia. But in a magazine called Himal? Of the
total simian population of the Subcontinent,
what percentage do you think lives in the
himal? Like humans, only-afraction. And
still you think you can get away with calling
your magazine Hima!? Your plot is easily
discemable—it is to use the mystical charm
associated with the name of our revered
64
homeland only to sell your magazine and
make piles of money.
Look, Mister, we have never gotten
along, you and I, and we have hung out our
dirty laundry before this, so let me tell you
what I think. I think this is a colonial plot to
get back the empire. Otherwise, why should
your 'South Asia1 go beyond the staid region
of the staider SAARC, and neatly encompass
the imperial South Asia, roping in "the arc
from Burma to Afghanistan"? Aha.
The news of this dastardly decision to
abandon the mountains for the more
lucrative plains has rapidly spread from
peak to peak, and I can rightly tell you that
all the himals of the Himalaya are properly
miffed. Old Annapurna One, for one, is so
angry he avalanched uncontrollably. You'd
better avoid all areas north of Pokhara for
the next few decades, though 1 do not know
why I say this because obviously the only
direction you plan to head is south.
As a (former) columnist, I am being
forced to listen to an endless number of
messages from himals, tall and vertically
challenged, some of them from as far away
as the Hindukush, who a) berate me for
having associated with you in the first place,
b) poke fun at me for being made to look
like a fool by a human, and c) advise me on
future course of action. This last includes
keeping close watch on your movements so
that when the council decides, an earth
tremor, GLOF, mudslide, flashflood or
avalanche-can be sent down to complicate
your progress.
In view of our long association, and
also to protect our mutual interests, I have,
however, suggested to the warring himats
that we should see if this mess might be
sorted out amicably. Firstly, 1 can hardly
argue with your business sense regarding
the retention of the heavenly name of Himal.
But it would be odd to pick up a copy after
your relaunch and read about every other
topic and place except the Himalaya.
The lowlanders have invaded every
sphere of our lives. Be forewarned. Your
flyer promised to cover their issues, their
trends and their money, but this can only
encourage an early coup. What you need.
Mister, therefore, is a watchdog. An
ombudsman-like ombudswoman who will
call a himal a himal even as you strain to go
where the market pulls.
Are you getting what I am
suggesting, as they say in
Muzzafarpur?. What I am
suggesting is a continuation of a
certain column on a certain page,
you are agreeable, then I can confirm
that we have a deal. If not, Hanuman
forbid but we may have a crisis on our
hands, as all himals will surely decide
to go in for global warming. Then, just
watch your South Asia flood!
NwemberlDecember 1935 HIMAL
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A watch whose true nature you experience when you put
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And imperishably beautiful, thanks to the slightly curved
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bracelet. Rado La Coupole 'Ceramique' - a beautiful
watch that stays beautiful - a watch that fits as though
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SULUX CENTRE
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9
NOVEIWER / DECEMBER 1995
. . . .
A
faitirig on Burma
Himalayan Porter
Do€>n School
South Asia Meet
Buddhist Women
- : .
. : ■ ■ - : : '
• Vol 8 number 6
,
OUTH
ASI